- 222 _ THE TEASEL FAMILY. 
Europe and Russian Asia to the Arctic Circle. Abundant in Britain, 
Fl, all summer. 
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XLII. COMPOSITA. THE COMPOSITE FAMILY. 
Herbs, or in some exotic genera or species, shrubs, with alter- 
nate or opposite leaves, without stipules. Flowers or florets 
collected several together into a head surrounded by an invo- 
lucre, the whole having the appearance of a single flower, and 
called by older authors a compound flower, with a common calyx. 
The receptacle, or enlarged summit of the peduncle on which | 
the florets are inserted within the involucre, either bears chaffy 
scales and hairs between the florets or is naked. In each floret 
the calyx is combined with the ovary, either completely so or 
only appears at its summit as a short border, or more frequently 
as a pappus: that is, a ring of long, simple or feathery 
(plumose) hairs or bristles, or of small chaffy scales. Corollas 
either all tubular, with a 5-toothed (or rarely 4-toothed) border, 
or all ligulate: that is to say, flat, hnear or oblong, forming 
only a short tube at the base; or else both kinds are in the 
same head, the central ones tubular, forming the disk ; the outer 
ones hgulate, constituting the ray. In the latter case the head 
of flowers is said to be radiate, and in contradistinction a head 
of flowers that has no ray is said to be discoid, and one which 
has no disk is said to be ligulate. Stamens 5 or rarely 4, in- 
-serted in the tube of the corolla; the anthers linear and united 
in a sheath round the style. Ovary inferior, with a single erect 
ovule, and a filiform style divided at the top into two short 
branches bearing the stigmas. Fruit a small, dry, seed-like 
nut, usually called an achene, crowned by the pappus or some- 
times naked. 
The most extensive family among flowéring plants, and represented 
in every quarter of the globe and in every description of station. It is 
also most easily recognised. The ligular florets are unknown in any 
other family, and when the florets are all tubular, Composite are dis- 
tinguished from Dipsacee, and the few others which have similar heads 
of florets, by the union of the anthers. In Jasione indeed the anthers 
are slightly united, but there, besides other characters, the ovary and 
capsule have two cells with several seeds. The genera are very 
numerous, and the characters are often taken from differences in the 
achenes and in the pappus which crowns them, which cannot well be 
observed until the fruit is ripe. It is therefore particularly necessary, 
in Composite, in collecting specimens for determination, to gather such _ 
as have the most advanced flower-heads, and these will always be found 
in the centre of the corymb. aa 
