526 



COM POSIT iE. 



Heads solitary or corymbose, borne on long naked peduncles. 

 Flowers yellow, or the lobes of the disk-corolla turning yellowish or 

 brownish. Kays several, usually drooping. Bracts of the involu- 

 cre linear, reflexed. Keceptacle globose or hemispherical, naked. 

 Achenes turbinate, ribbed. Pappus of 5 to 12 thin or hyaline palea?, 

 in ours short-pointed. (Greek name of some plant, perhaps named 

 after Helenus, son of Priam.) 



Rays shorter than the disk, 3 to 5 lines long 1. if. puberulum. 



Rays as long or longer than the disk, 7 to 9 lines long . . . 2. if . Bigelovii. 



1. H. puberulum DC. Rosilla. Puberulent, paniculately 

 branched, 2 to 5 ft. high, the branches ending in long slender pedun- 

 cles; leaves lanceolate or narrowly linear or the longest oblong, sessile 

 and strongly decurrent on the stem; globose disk of flowers 5 to 7 

 lines broad; rays and bracts of the involucre reflexed, short and in- 

 conspicuous; disk-flowers red-brown; scales of pappus ovate, short- 

 awned. 



Creek beds, stream banks and about springy places: Humboldt Co.; 

 Vaca Yalley; San Francisco; San Jose; Loma Prieta; Monterey and 

 southward to Southern California. July-Nov. 



2. H. Bigelovii Gray. Bigelow's Sneezeweed. Stem 2 to 



4 ft. high, branching above into several erect peduncle-like branches; 

 leaves lanceolate, thickish, 9 in. long or less, minutely tomentose, 

 not so conspicuously decurrent as in the preceding; rays showy, 

 golden yellow, 7 to 9 lines long; disk brownish yellow; pappus-paleie 



5 to 8, ovate-lanceolate, tapering into a slender awn; achenes hairy. 

 Marshy ground in the North Coast Ranges; first collected by J. M. 



Bigelow at Santa Rosa Creek. 



44. BLENNOSPERMA Less. 



Low annual herbs with alternate pinnately parted leaves and 

 peduncle-like branches bearing solitary yellow flowers. Involucre 

 simple, parted into broadly oblong bracts. Receptacle naked. Heads 

 many-flowered. Ray-flowers fertile; disk-flowers perfect but sterile. 

 Achenes obovate, not compressed or angled, densely covered with 

 minute papilla?. Pappus none. (Greek blenna, mucus, and sperma, 

 seed, the surface of the achene becoming conspicuously mucilaginous 

 when moistened.) 



1. B. Californicum (DC.) T. & G. Stems branching from near 

 the base, becoming diffuse, 4 to 6 in. high, often naked above; herbage 

 glabrous, slightly succulent; leaves parted into narrowly linear 

 remote lobes; involucre greenish with purple markings; ray-flowers 

 8 to 11, the ligule of the corolla 2 to 3 lines long, or the alternate 

 pistils destitute of corolla; style-branches of ray-flowers broad; disk- 

 flowers 20 to 45, shorter than the involucre, their styles undivided, 

 capitate at summit; achenes obscurely 8 to 10-ribbed. 



Not infrequent in moist ground, from the upper Sacramento Yalley 

 to Southern California; Ukiah; Kenwood, Sonoma Co.; Yanden, 

 Solano Co.; Antioch; Danville; Livermore Pass. Feb.-Mar. 



