Hieracium.] XLIIL COMPOSITE. 267 



usually stiffer and never so white. The habit is also different, with 

 the exception of a few species, which are also intermediate in more 

 essential characters. Most of the species are very variable, and 

 specimens are frequently found intermediate between some of the 

 commonest ones. In the attempt to classify these forms, and to give 

 greater exactness to their definitions, modern botanists have distributed 

 them into a large number of supposed species, amounting to 33 for 

 Britain alone ; but the difficulty of distinguishing them appears only 

 to increase with their subdivision. 



Peduncles radical, bearing a single flower-head. 

 Peduncles leafless. Stems creeping. Leaves white under- 

 neath. Flower-heads pale yellow 1. H. Piloselta. 



Peduncles or flower-stems with 1 or more narrow leaves. No 

 creeping stems. Leaves not white. Flower-heads large, 

 bright yellow. 

 Radical leaves ovate. Involucres with short hairs . . 3. H. murorum. 

 Radical leaves narrow. Involucres with long hairs . . 2. H. alpinum. 

 Flowering-stems with more than one flower-head. 

 Radical leaves mostly persistent at the time of floicering. Stem- 

 leaves one or few. Outer involucral bracts few and short. 

 Stem-leaves ovate and toothed, or small and narrow, 



stalked or sessile, scarcely stem-clasping . . . 3. H. murorum. 

 Stem-leaves 1 or 2, entire, glaucous, clasping the stem with 



broad rounded auricles 4. H. cerinthoides. 



No radical leaves at the time of floicering. Stem leafy. Outer 

 involucral bracts imbricated. 

 Upper stem -leaves sessile or shortly stalked, not clasping 

 the stem. 

 Upper stem-leaves all tapering at the base, usually 



narrow 5. H. umbellatum. 



Upper stem-leaves short and broad, rounded at the base . 6. H. sabaudum. 

 Upper stem-leaves clasping the stem. 

 Auricles of the stem-leaves short and rounded. 

 Stem-leaves several, ciliate. Pappus dirty-white . . 7. H. prenanthoides. 

 Stem-leaves very few, glabrous. Pappus very white 



and soft Crepis hieracioides. 



Auricles of the stem-leaves long and very pointed, or 

 angular Crepis paludosa. 



1. H. Pilosella, Linn. (fig. 602). Mouse-ear H. — Stock perennial, 

 with spreading tufts of radical leaves, and creeping, leafy, barren 

 shoots. Leaves much smaller than in the other British species, oblong 

 or lanceolate, entire, tapering at the base, and often stalked, green 

 above with a few long hairs, white underneath with a short stellate 

 down. Peduncles radical, with a single head of lemon-coloured 

 flowers, often tinged with red on the outside. Involucres and upper 

 part of the peduncle more or less clothed with a minute and close 

 whitish down, mixed with short, stiff, spreading black hairs. Achenes 

 shorter in proportion to the pappus than in the other species. 



In dry pastures, on banks and roadsides, throughout Europe and 

 Russian Asia, from the Mediterranean to the Arctic regions. Very 

 common in Britain. Fl. the whole season. In southern Europe it is 

 very variable, but in Britain presents no difficulties. The only other 

 species with creeping runners ever admitted into our Floras is R. 

 aurantiacum, L., a native of the mountains of southern Europe, which 

 may have spread out of cottage gardens, but is not naturalised ; it 

 has radical peduncles, bearing a corymb of small orange-red flower- 

 heads. 



