COMPOSITE. (COMPOSITE FAMILY.) 215 



Order 52. DIPSACEyE. (Teasel Family.) 



Herbs, with opposite or whorled leaves, no stipules, and the flowers in dense 

 heads, surrounded by an involucre, as in the Composite Family ; but the sta- 

 mens are distinct, and the suspended seed has albumen. — Represented by 

 the Scabious (cultivated) and the genus 



1. DIPS AC US, Tourn. Teasel. 



Involucre many-leaved, longer than the chaffy leafy-tipped and pointed bracts 

 among- the densely capitate flowers : each flower with a 4-leaved calyx-like in- 

 volucel investing the ovaiy and fruit (achenium). Calyx-tube coherent with 

 the ovary, the limb cup-shaped, without a pappus. Corolla nearly regular, 

 4-cleft. Stamens 4, inserted on the corolla. Style slender. — Stout and coarse 

 biennials, hairy or prickly, with large oblong heads. (Name from §i\//-daj, 

 to thirst, probably because the united cup-shaped bases of the leaves in some 

 species hold water.) 



1. D. sylvestris, Mill. (Wild Teasel.) Prickly ; leaves lance-oblong ; 

 leaves of the involucre slender, longer than the head ; bracts (chaff) tapering 

 into a long flexible awn with a straight point. — Roadsides : rather rare. (Nat. 

 from Eu.) Suspected to be the original of 



2. D. FullOnum, L., the cultivated Fuller's Teasel, which has a shorter 

 involucre, and stiff chaff to the heads, with hooked points, used for raising a 

 nap upon woollen cloth : it has escaped from cultivation in some places. (Adv. 

 from Eu.) 



Order 53. COMPOSITE. (Composite Family.) 



Floioers in a close head (the compound flower of the older botanists), 

 on a common receptacle, surrounded by an involucre, with 5 (rarely 4) 

 stamens inserted on the corolla, their anthers united in a tube (syngenesious). 

 — Calyx-tube united with the 1-celled ovary, the limb (called a pappus) 

 crowning its summit in the form of bristles, awns, scales, teeth, &c, or 

 cup-shaped, or else entirely absent. Corolla either strap-shaped or tubu- 

 lar ; in the latter chiefly 5-lobed, valvate in the bud, the veins bordering 

 the margins of the lobes. Style 2-cleft at the apex. Fruit seed-like 

 (achenium), dry, containing a single erect anatropous seed, with.no albu- 

 men. — An immense family, in temperate regions chiefly herbs, without 

 stipules, with perfect, polygamous, monoecious, or dioecious flowers. The 

 flowers with a strap-shaped (ligulate) corolla are called rays or ray-flow- 

 ers : the head which presents such flowers, either throughout or at the 

 margin, is radiate. The tubular flowers compose the disk ; and a head 

 which has no ray-flowers is said to be discoid. When the head contains 

 two sorts of flowers it is said to be heterdgamous ; when only one sort, 

 homdgamous. The leaves of the involucre, of whatever form or texture, 

 are termed scales. The bracts or scales, which often grow on the recep- 



