442 



THE COMPOSITE FAMILY. 



4. Wood Cudweed. Gnaphalium sylvaticum, Linn. 

 (Fig. 525.) 



(Eng. Bot. t. 913. G. rectum, Eng. Bot. t. 124.) 



Stock perennial, tnfted or shortly 

 creeping, with long-stalked, lanceolate 

 leaves. Flowering stems nearly simple, 

 erect, from 2 to 6 or 8 inches high, with 

 linear leaves, usually cottony on the 

 under side only, but sometimes on both 

 sides. Flower-heads small, cylindrical 

 or ovoid, either solitary or in little clus- 

 ters in the axils of the upper leaves, 

 forming a long, leafy spike. Involucres 

 scarcely cottony, with brown, shining 

 bracts ; the outer filiform florets more 

 numerous than the inner tubular ones. 

 Achenes slender, nearly cylindrical. 



In open woods, heaths, and pastures, 

 in northern and central Europe and 

 Russian Asia, and all round the Arctic 

 Circle ; becoming a mountain plant in 

 the south, and scarcely reaching the 

 Mediterranean. Extends over the whole of Britain, but rare in south- 

 western England. Fl. summer and autumn. A high alpine or Arctic 

 variety, with the leaves cottony on both sides, and the flower-heads 

 darker coloured, in a short terminal spike, has been distinguished 

 under the name of G. norvegicum or fuscatum, and has been found on 

 some of the Scotch mountains. 



Fig. 525. 



5. Dwarf Cudweed. Gnaphalium supinum, Linn. 

 (Fig. 526.) 



(Eng. Bot. t. 1193, unusually luxuriant.) 



A small, tufted perennial, with narrow leaves, sometimes resembling 

 dwarf specimens of the wood C, but the stem seldom 2 inches high, 

 bearing only very few flower-heads in a terminal cluster, or only a 

 single one ; and sometimes the flower-heads are almost sessile in the 

 centre of the radical leaves. Involucres brown, like those of the wood 



