216 
xl vi. composite: cichoracevL. \Le6nlodon. 
uniformly beaked, and the outer scales of the involucre small linear- 
spreading and scarcely membranaceous-margined, has been occa- 
sionally found in fields, but is not indigenous.] 
12. Leontodon Linn. Dandelion. (Tab. III. A.) 
Achenes terete, or slightly angled at the base, compressed up- 
wards, with a very long slender beak. Pappus pilose. Recept. 
naked. Invol. many-flowered, imbricated with scales, of which 
the outermost are frequently lax and flaccid, reflexed in fruit. 
— Named from Xuo v, a lion, and oSovc, a tooth ; from the tooth- 
like margins of the leaves. 
1. L. Taraxacum L. ( common D.) ; leaves runcinate toothed. 
— a. outer scales of the flowering involucre reflexed. E. B. 
t. 510. Taraxacum officinale Wigg. T. Dens Leonis Desf. — 
/3. scales of the flowering involucre erect adpressed. L.palustre 
Sin. : E. B. t. 553. Tar. palustre DC. 
Meadows and pastures, common. — A Wet open pastures and 
moors. 2 /.. 3 — 10. — We only notice the two extreme vars., but 
there are several intermediate forms. The lowermost leaves are some- 
times obovate, and not runcinate. Fruit linear-obovate, obtuse, 
muricated towards or at the apex, longitudinally striate, usually 
pale, but sometimes reddish-yellow or even bright red. 
13. IIieracium Linn. Hawk-weed. 
Achenes angular, furrowed, with an entire or toothed margin 
at the top without a beak. Pappus pilose, in one row, frequently 
brownish, persistent and brittle. Receptacle nearly naked, 
dotted. Invol. imbricated. — Name : iipaui or, name of a plant ; 
so called from i epa£, a hawk ; because birds of prey were 
imagined to use the juice of this plant to strengthen their 
powers of vision. 
[In the Symb. ad Hist. Hier. (Nov. Act. Reg. Soc. Scient. Ups. 
vol. xiii. xiv.) of Fries, he notices, by referring either to plates or to 
specimens, 32 species natives of Britain ; after rejecting 9 of these as 
probably mentioned by mistake or as doubtfully indigenous, Mr. 
Backhouse, in his “ Monograph of the British Hieracia,” increases the 
number to 33. No one in this country has studied this genus more 
than Mr. Backhouse, both wild and in a state of cultivation ; and if 
every form tolerably permanent after a few years’ observations is to be 
deemed a distinct species, we fear that number falls far short of what 
it will yet be found to be. What renders the subject more confused 
is, that, although the British species described by Mr. Backhouse have 
analogues in the north and also in the mountains of the middle of 
Europe, these often not only differ from each other hut also from the 
definition by which those of our own country have been too strictly 
limited, leading to the unsatisfactory conclusion that each mountainous 
district may have a series of species peculiar to itself. If, again, we 
begin to combine the forms, thfc chain is so continuous, that we 
scarcely know where to stop, whole sections of Fries and of Backhouse 
