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Descriptive Flora 



like corolla in each angle. Leaves simple, alternate. Blades 1 to 

 8 inches long, deeply cut into three to several long lobes, these 

 with few rounded teeth or narrowly oblong lobes. Flowers com- 

 posite, white, the disk compact and composing the majority of the 

 flower. Ray flowers 5, broad but very short, scarcely seen with 

 the naked eye, 1 in each of the 5 angles of the flat, dense, white 

 head. Blossoms from April to late fall. By far, one of the com- 

 monest roadside, alley and neglected yard weeds. 



A near relative of the guayule plant, which grows farther 

 west in Texas and in Mexico and from which commercial rubber 

 is obtained. 



Tetraganotheca texana (A. Gray) Gray & Engelm. 



Ragged Daisy. 



Few leaved plants 1 to 2 feet tall, with conspicuously square 

 involucres of 4 broad leaflike bracts and few large yellow com- 

 posite flowers, over 2 inches across, terminating the long slender 

 naked stalks. Upper stems leaves simple, opposite, coarsely and 

 bluntly toothed, wavy or deeply cut, clasping the stem on each 

 side by a toothed disk. Flowers yellow with a large brown or 

 yellow disk, and about 10 narrow rays each about %" long, and 

 having 5 parallel veins underneath. Achenes 4-angled. April, 

 May and June. Widespread. Rocky soil also common in sandy 

 regions to the south where the ray flowers are fully 1 inch long. 



Eclipta alba (L.) Hassk. 



A much branched weed with thick sprawling stems and 

 small, unattractive, inconspicuous, composite, whitish flowers. 

 Leaves simple, opposite. Blades 1 to 2 inches long, lanceolate to 

 oblong, entire, wavy or obscurely toothed, sessile. Flowers com- 

 posite, i/g to 14 inch across, with tiny 4-toothed disk flowers and 

 a short, white fringe of ray flowers that are shorter than the 

 bracts of the involucre. Bracts of the involucre, 5 to 6 in each 

 of the 2 rows, the outer ones united to about the middle. Fruit 

 a mound, about y± inch across, consisting of tiny, roughened, 

 black, wedge-shaped achenes. Pappus none. Receptacle covered 



