430 



THE COMPOSITE FAMILY. 



1. Fetid Camomile. Anthemis Cotula, Linn. (Fig. 510.) 



(Eng. Bot. t. 1772. Stink Mayweed.) 



An erect, branching annual, a foot 

 high, or rather more, glabrous, but 

 sprinkled with glandular dots, and emit- 

 ting a disagreeable smell when rubbed. 

 Lower leaves twice or thrice, upper ones 

 once pinnate, with very narrow-linear, 

 short, pointed lobes, entire or divided. 

 Flower-heads in a loose terminal corymb. 

 Involucre slightly cottony, the inner 

 bracts s carious at the top. Receptacle 

 convex from the beginning, lengthening 

 out as the flowering advances into a nar- 

 row oblong shape, with a few linear, 

 pointed scales among the central florets. 

 Hay-florets white, without any trace of 

 the style. Achenes rough with glandu- 

 lar dots, without any border. 



In cultivated ground, and waste places ; 

 a common weed all over Europe and 

 Russian Asia, except the extreme north. Abundant in southern Eng- 

 land and Ireland, much less so in the north, and rare in Scotland. FL 

 all summer and autumn. 



Fig. 510. 



2. Corn Camomile. Anthemis arvensis, Linn. (Pig. 511.) 



(Eng. Bot. t. 602.) 



A coarser plant than the fetid C, sometimes biennial, often decum- 

 bent, more or less downy with minute silky hairs, the leafy branches 

 terminating in single flower-heads. Segments of the leaves shorter, 

 and not so narrow as in the last, the flower-heads rather larger, the 

 bracts of the receptacle usually broader, and the florets of the ray have 

 always a style although they do not always perfect their fruit. 



Less widely diffused than the fetid C, and chiefly south European, 

 but extends also over a great part of the Continent. Certainly not 

 very common in England or Ireland, and local or rare in Scotland, 

 but so frequently confounded with allied species that its precise 

 distribution is difficult to ascertain. Fl. spring and summer. A 

 maritime variety, with a more spreading stem and thicker leaves, 



