COMPOSITE. (COMPOSITE FAMILY.) 281 



and Ed. 2) is tall, with a thick and hollow very leafy stem (4° - 9° high), smooth 

 Oi nearly so ; leaves long, most of them runcinate-pinnatifid ; heads very numer- 

 ous, in a long and narrow nuked panicle ; flowers mostly pale yellow. — Kich 

 and damp soil, borders of fields or thickets : common, especially northward. — 

 The following are perhaps to be restored as species : — 



Var. integrifolia, Torr. & Gr. (L. integrifolia, Bigel. ) Stem 3° - 6° high ; 

 leaves all undivided, either entire or sharply denticulate ; panicle more open ; 

 flowers pale yellow, cream-color, or purple. — Open and dry or sterile soil, E. 

 New England near the coast to Illinois and southward. 



Var. sanguinea, Torr. & Gr. (L. sanguinea, Bigel.) Lower and less 

 stout (2° -5° high); leaves all runcinate-pinnatifid, the midrib beneath and 

 lower part of the stem often sparsely bristly-hairy ; heads fewer, in a loose open 

 panicle ; flowers yellow-purple, reddish with or without a yellow centre, or rarely 

 white. — Open dry ground, Eastern New England to New Jersey, Illinois, and 

 southward. 



2. L. Scariola, L. (Prickly Lettuce.) Annual or biennial; stem 

 below sparsely prickly-bristly, as also the midrib on the lower face of the sagit- 

 tate-clasping oblong or lanceolate spinulose-denticulate vertical leaves ; panicle 

 narrow ; heads small, few-flowered ; achenia striate. — Waste grounds and road- 

 sides, Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Adv. from Eu.) 



84. MULGEDIUM, Cass. False or Blue Lettuce. 



Heads many-flowered. Involucre, &c. as in Lactuca. Achenia laterally com- 

 pressed, striate or ribbed, the summit contracted into a short and thick (or in 

 No. 1 slender) beak or neck of the same texture, expanded at the apex into a 

 ciliate disk, which bears a copious rather deciduous pappus of soft capillary 

 bristles. — Leafy-stemmed herbs, with the general aspect and foliage of Lactuca; 

 ours glabrous or nearly so. Heads racemed or panicled; the flowers chiefly 

 blue ; in summer. (Name from mulgeo, to milk.) 



* Pappus bright white : flowers blue. 



1. M. pulchellum, Nutt. Perennial, pale or glaucous; stem simple,- 1 G - 

 2° high; leaves sessile, oblong- or linear-lanceolate, entire, or the lower runci- 

 nate-pinnatifid ; heads few and large, racemose, erect; scales of the conical-cylin- 

 draceous involucre lanceolate, imbricated in 3 or 4 ranks ; the peduncles scaiy- 

 bracted; achenia tapering into a slender beak, almost as in Lactuca. — Upper 

 Michigan {Prof. Porter, &c), probably in N. W. Wisconsin: common on the 

 plains westward. 



2. M. acuminatum, DC. Tall biennial (3° -6° high), with many small 

 heads in a loose panicle, on diverging peduncles ■; leaves ovate or ovate-lanceolate, 

 pointed, barely toothed, sometimes hairy on the midrib beneath, contracted into a 

 winged petiole, the lowest occasionally sinuate ; achenia with a very short beak. 

 — Borders of thickets, New York to Illinois, and southward. — Probably only 

 an entire-leaved state of the next. 



3. M. Floridanum, DC. Leaves all It/rate or ruricinate, the upper often 

 with a heart-shaped clasping base ; panicle larger : otherwise as No. 2. — Rich 

 soil, Pennsylvania to Illinois and southward. 



L & M— 32 



