230 



Descriptive Flora 



flowers that have a green or brown columnar disk 1 to l 1 /^' 

 long, and about 4 to 10 drooping, velvety, yellow or variously 

 parti-colored rays. Leaves simple, alternate, deeply cut into 5 to 

 9 narrow segments. Flowers composite, over 1 inch across, with 

 long, drooping, velvety, yellow, red, brown or brown-purple 

 parti-colored rays that turn back against the long, slender, 

 grooved flower-stalks. April to fall. One of our commonest 

 weeds. 



Ratibida picta (Gray) Small. 

 (Lepachys picta Gray) 



Similar to the preceding species but flowers are on much 

 longer, leafless peduncles ( 1 to 2 inches long), ray flowers are 

 smaller (these not over y 2 " long), disk is longer (ranging up to 

 2"), leaves are on about the lower third of the plant, and blades 

 have broader divisions. Plant grows in sandy soil near the 

 southern border of the county. Not as common as the preceding 

 species. 



Viguiera lielianthoides H. B. K. 



Bushy, leafy, fall flowering plants, 1 to 4 feet high, with 

 opposite leaves and yellow composite flowers about 1 inch across. 

 Leaves simple, alternate or opposite. Blades ovate, 2 to 6" long, 

 rough, shallowly and irregularly serrate or almost entire, 3- 

 veined at base. Flowers solitary or few together, on long stalks 

 at the ends of the many branches. Rays yellow, % to long, 

 about a dozen, not seed bearing. Disk yellow, about %" across. 

 Achenes flattened, tipped by 2 awns, and encased in concave 

 chaffs. Receptacle chaffy. Bracts of the involucre narrow, in 

 several rows. September, October and November. Grows in 

 masses along roadsides and in fields. Plants may be confused 

 with Encelia oalva, which blossoms from April to fall, bears its 

 flowers singly on long, naked, rough stalks (8 to 18" long), and 

 has its leafstalks joined by a leaf -like appendage at the base. 



