Sonchus.] XLIII. COMPOSITE. 263 



nearly the geographical range of S. arvensis, but appears to be more 

 confined to eastern Europe, and nowhere common. In Britain, very 

 rare, the only certain localities being in the marshes of some of the 

 eastern counties of England. Fl. late summer, or autumn. 



3. S. oleraceus, Linn. (fig. 594). Common S.—An annual, with a 

 rather thick hollow stem, 1 to 3 or even 4 feet high, perfectly glabrous, 

 except occasionally a very few stiff glandular hairs on the peduncles. 

 Leaves thin, pinnatifid, with a broad, heart-shaped or triangular ter- 

 minal lobe, bordered with irregular, pointed or prickly teeth, and a few 

 smaller lobes or coarse teeth along the broad leafstalk ; the upper leaves 

 narrow and clasping the stem with short auricles. Flower-heads rather 

 small, in a short corymbose panicle, sometimes almost umbellate ; the 

 involucres remarkably conical after flowering. Florets of a pale yellow. 

 Achenes flattened, with longitudinal ribs often marked with transverse 

 wrinkles or asperities, the pappus of copious snow-white hairs. 



A weed of cultivation, so universally distributed over the globe, except 

 perhaps some tropical districts, that the limits of its native country 

 cannot now be fixed ; probably truly indigenous in Europe and central 

 Asia. Very abundant in Britain. Fl. the whole season. S. asper, Hoffm., 

 or Prickly S., is a marked variety, in which the longitudinal ribs of the 

 achenes have not the transverse wrinkles. The leaves are usually darker 

 in colour and less divided, but much more closely bordered with prickly 

 teeth ; and the auricles which clasp the stem are broader, rounded, and 

 more prickly toothed ; none of these characters are, however, constant. 

 It is almost always mixed with S. oleraceus, and in many places as 

 abundant. 



XXXVI. TARAXACUM. DANDELION. 



Herbs, with a perennial rootstock, radical leaves, and radical peduncles, 

 with single heads of yellow flowers. Involucres of several nearly equal, 

 erect, inner bracts, and several imbricated or recurved outer ones. Eecep- 

 tacle without scales. Achenes tapering into a long slender beak, with a 

 pappus of numerous simple hairs. 



A widely diffused genus, of which all the described species may 

 perhaps be considered as varieties of a single one, differing from 

 Leontodon in the simple hairs of the pappus, and from Crepis chiefly in 

 the leafless simple peduncles. 



1. T. Dens-leonis, Desf. (fig. 595). Common Dandelion. — The root- 

 stock descends into a thick tap-root, black on the outside, and very 

 bitter. Leaves varying from linear-lanceolate and almost entire to 

 deeply pinnatifid, with broad triangular lobes usually pointing down- 

 wards, the terminal one larger, obovate or acute. Peduncles 2 to 6 or 

 8 inches high. Involucral bracts linear, often thickened towards the 

 top, or with a tooth on the back below the point. Achenes slightly or 

 not at all compressed, striated, marked upwards with short, pointed 

 asperities, the beak two or three times as long as the achene itself. 

 T. officinale, Web. 



In meadows and pastures, cultivated and waste places, throughout 

 the northern hemisphere to the Arctic regions, and now a troublesome 

 weed in most parts of the world. Among the numerous forms which 



