ORD. III.] CALCITIIAPA STELLAtA. 4^2^ 



smooth on both sides, or slightly ciUated. Above the divisions 

 of the branches spring the flowers, on very short stalks, surround- 

 ed by leaves similar to those on the stem. The calyces are ovate^ 

 smooth, of a pale green colour, and about the size of a hazeL 

 nut. The scales of which they consist, pass into very strong 

 thorns, of a whitish yellow, half an inch or more in length, and 

 have subordinate thorns at their base. The florets are all of 

 a pale red colour and tubular, with a quinque-partite margin : 

 the marginal florets contain no sexual parts, and the seed 

 below them is therefore abortive. They are somewhat lar- 

 ger than the florets of the disc, which shew the pistillum with 

 a cleft stigma within the cylinder of antherae. If the cylin- 

 der of antherae be touched at a certain period during flower- 

 ing, it contracts, and the pistillum comes more strongly for- 

 ward, (316.) The germen is furnished with cilia. The fruit 

 is an oval caryopsis, without a pappus, with its umbilicus at 

 one side. 



Diagnosis and Affinity. 



Calcitrapa lanceolata Lam. {Centaurea Calcitrapoides 

 Linn.), is the most nearly related to this plant. But it is 

 distinguished by its taller growth, its hnear-lanceolate leaves, 

 its woolly scales of the calyx, and its white pappus. C entail^ 

 rea myacanihus De Candolle, also resembles our plant, and 

 the seeds are likewise without a pappus. But the leaves 

 are woolly, the scales of the calyx have appendages which 

 are surrounded with small thorns. Centaurea solstilialis, al- 

 though the scales of the calyx are armed with similar thorns, 

 i« yet sufficiently distinguished by its decurrent leaves, which 

 make the stem winged, and by its yellow flowers. The ge- 

 nus Calcitriipa is separated, by Vaillant and Jussieu, from 

 the Centaureae : it is distinguished by its want of a pap- 

 pus, and by compound or double thorns on the scales of the 

 palyx, (Anleit. ii. 540.) 



Synonymes and Figures. 

 Eryngium, Brunft. S. 59. 



Carduus stellatus, Dodon. 733. Maith, cd, Bauli. 504. 



