COMPOSITE. 



421 



constant, are so minute as not to be seen without a careful dissection 

 and good magnifier. The florets of the ray are also very numerous 

 and narrow in Inule, much fewer and broader in Goldenrod. 



Flower-heads very large, with broadly ovate mvolucral bracts 1. Elecampane I. 

 Flower- heads less than an inch in diameter. Involucral 

 bracts narrow. 

 Bays considerably longer than the involucre. 



Grlabrous plants, with narrow thick, succulent leaves . 2. Samphire I. 

 Downy plant, wdth flat, ovate or oblong, stem- clasping 



leaves '. 4. Common I. 



Rays very minute, concealed by the involucre, or scarcely 

 longer. 

 Tall perennial. Flower-heads ovoid, in dense corymbs 3. Rigid I. 

 Annual, scarcely a foot high. Flower-heads broad, softly 



downy, in a loose, leafy corymb 5. Small 1. 



1. Elecampane Inule. Inula Helenium, Linn. (Fig. 499.) 

 (Eng. Bot. t. 1546. Elecampane.) 



A coarse perennial, with stout, erect, 

 scarcely branched stems, about2 feethigh. 

 Eadical leaves often a foot long, oblong, 

 and narrowed into a stalk ; the upper 

 ones ovate or oblong, clasping the stem, 

 nearly glabrous above, more or less 

 softly hairy underneath. Flower-heads 

 very large, solitary at the ends of the 

 branches. Involucral bracts broadly 

 ovate and softly hairy. Florets of the 

 ray numerous, long, and linear. 



In rich hilly pastures, in central and 

 southern Europe, and eastward to the 

 Caucasus and Himalaya, and, having 

 been much cultivated in former days in 

 herb-gardens, it has established itself 

 in many places further north. It may 

 therefore be only an introduced plant in 

 Britain, when growing, as it generally does, in the neighbourhood of 

 old castles and gardens ; but it is also believed to be truly indigenous 

 in some parts of southern England, South Wales, and Ireland. Fl. 

 summer and autumn. 



