Averacium. | XLII. COMPOSITE. 269 
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, the H. aurantiacum, L., is a native 
of the mountains of southern Europe, which may here and there have 
spread out of some cottage gardens, but it is not naturalized; it has radical 
peduncles, bearing a corymb of small orange-red flower-heads. 
2, H. alpinum, Linn. (fig. 601). Alpine Hawkweed.—Rootstock 
short and thick, sometimes shortly creeping, but without creeping leafy 
stems, Leaves chiefly radical, oblong or lanceolate, slightly toothed, green, 
with a few long hairs. Peduncles or flower-stems about 6 inches high, 
simple or rarely divided into 2 simple branches; they fusually bear 1, 2, or 
even 3 small narrow leaves, and a single rather large head of bright yellow 
flowers. Involucres and peduncles more or less clothed with long rusty 
hairs ; the outer bracts few and small, as in H. murorum. 
A high alpine or Arctic species, spread over the mountains of northern 
and Arctic Europe and Asia, and the higher ranges of central and southern 
Europe. Not uncommon in the highlands of Scotland, and in tlie moun- 
tains of North Wales, and found also in some parts of north-western 
England. #7. summer. In its ordinary state it is easily recognized, but 
in the Scotch highlands a variety occurs with broader leaves, longer 
flower-stems, and less shaggy involucres with black hairs; this, the Z. 
nigrescens, Willd., is intermediate between H. alpinum and H. murorum. 
3. H.murorum, Linn. (fig. 602). Wall Hawkweed.—The short 
perennial stock bears a spreading tuft of rather large, ovate or oblong 
leaves, always stalked, sometimes very obtuse and nearly entire, more fre- 
quently pointed and coarsely toothed, especially near the base, sometimes 
tapering into the stalk, sometimes more or less cordate at the base, usually 
slightly hairy, and often of a pale glaucous-green underneath. Flower- 
stems erect, 1 to 2 feet high, rarely quite leafless, usually with 1 or 2 leaves 
near the base like the radical ones but smaller, and 1 or 2 smaller narrow 
ones higher up, but occasionally with several leaves. Flower-heads rather 
large and yellow, usually 3 or 4 only, but sometimes as many as 20 or 30, 
in a loose terminal corymb. Involucres and peduncles more or less 
clothed ‘with black, glandular hairs, intermixed with a shorter, rusty- 
coloured down, whilst the stem is glabrous, or bears in the lower part long, 
white woolly hairs, which are sometimes very dense close to the stock. 
Scales of the involucres narrow, the inner ones nearly equal, the outer few 
and much shorter. 
On banks and old walls, in meadows and rich pastures, bushy places, 
and open woods, throughout Europe and Russian Asia, from the Mediter- 
ranean to the Arctic regions. Very common all over Britain. #7. all sum- 
mer and early autumn. Exceedingly variable in the shape and teeth of 
the leaves, in colour and hairiness, in the number of stem-leaves and of 
flower-heads. In alpine situations the leaves are usually much more entire, 
often obovate. A marked variety, growing in woods and on banks, with 
a much more leafy stem, has long been distinguished under the names of 
HI, sylvaticum, Sm., or H. vulgatum, Fries., but it is everywhere con- 
nected with the more typical form by a series of intermediates which defy 
classification. From H. sabaudum and H. umbellatum it may be known 
by the radical leaves larger than the stem ones, and persistent at the time 
