260 



COMPOSITE 



the upper ones sessile, amplexicaul ; heads terminal, solitary, or 

 nearly so, 3 in. across, bright yellow ; bracts broadly ovate, downy. 

 — -Meadows ; not common and often only a naturalised escape. 

 It was formerly cultivated as a tonic, and its rhizome is still 

 candied and furnishes the Vin d'Aulnee of the French, being 

 considered valuable in diseases of the lungs. — Fl. July, August. 

 Perennial. 



2. /. squarrosa (Ploughman's Spikenard). — An erect, downy 

 plant, 2 — 5 feet high ; leaves dull green ; ovate-lanceolate, downy, 



toothed, 3 — 5 in. long, the 

 lower ones stalked ; heads in a 

 branched corymb, numerous, 

 dingy yellow, with leaf-like 

 bracts, the outer of which are 

 blunt and revolute, and incon- 

 spicuous ray-florets. — Banks 

 chiefly on a calcareous soil ; 

 not uncommon. — Fl. July- 

 September. Biennial. 



3. /. salicina, a nearly gla- 

 brous species, 12 — 18 in. high, 

 with narrow, toothed leaves 

 and terminal, solitary heads, 

 i\ in. across, is found only on 

 the shores of Lough Derg, 

 Galway. 



4. /. crithmoides (Golden 

 Samphire). — Well distinguish- 

 ed from every other British 

 plant, glabrous, yellow-green, 

 6 — 18 in. high, slightly 

 branched, with numerous very 

 narrow, fleshy, blunt or 2 — 4- 

 pointed leaves, and solitary 



golden-yellow heads, 1 in. across. — Salt marshes and sea-cliffs in 

 the west; rare.— Fl. July, August. Perennial. 



11. Pulicaria (Flea-bane). — Differing from Inula chiefly in 

 having the bracts loosely imbricate in a few rows, and an outer 

 row of short scales to the pappus. (Name from the Latin pulex, 

 a flea, the strong smell of the plant, or its pollen, being supposed 

 to drive away fleas.) 



1. P. dysenterica (Common Flea-bane). — From 1 — 2 feet high, 

 growing in masses, and well marked by its woolly stem; soft, 



pulicaria dysenterica 

 {Common Flea-bane). 



