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tinguishable from it ; its limb either wanting, or membranous, divided into bristles, paleae, 
hairs, or feathers, and called pappus. Corolla monopetalous, superior, usually deciduous, 
either ligulate or funnel-shaped; in the latter case, 4- or 5-toothed, with a valvate aestiva- 
tion. Stamens equal in number to the teeth of the corolla, and alternate with them ; the 
anthers cohering into a cylinder. Ovary inferior, 1 -celled, with a single erect ovule ; style 
simple ; stigmas 2, either distinct or united. Fruit a small, indehiscent, dry pericarp, 
crowned with the limb of the calyx. Seed solitar>% erect ; embryo with a taper, inferior 
radicle ; albumen none. — Herbaceous plants or shrubs. Leaves alternate or opposite, with- 
out stipules, usually simple. Flowers (called unisexual or hermaphrodite, collected 
in dense heads upon a common receptacle, surrounded by an involucre. Bracts either pre- 
sent or absent ; when present, stationed at the base of the florets, and called palece of the 
receptacle. 
Affinities. One of the most natural and extensive families of the vege- 
table kingdom, at all times recognised by its syngenesious stamens and capi- 
tate flowers. Calyceraceae and Dipsacese, neighbouring orders, are readily 
distinguished by their pendulous ovule, and the anthers being either wholly or 
partially distinct. In proportion to its strict natural limits, depending upon 
the uniformity of its characters, is the difficulty of separating it into sections 
or subordinate divisions, a measure absolutely necessaiy, on account of the 
vast number of species referable to the order. Jussieu has three ; Corymbi- 
ferse, the florets of which are flosculous in the middle, and ligulate at the cir- 
cumference ; Cichoracese, the florets of which are all ligulate ; and Cynaro- 
cephalse, all whose florets are flosculous ; to which has since been added a 
tribe called bilabiate. Linnaeus divided them according to the sexes of the 
florets of different parts of the same head. The former has been found unex- 
ceptionable, as far as it goes ; the latter wholly unmanageable. Neither, 
however, have satisfied the views of modern botanists, who have divided the 
order into a considerable number of sections, to which many names have been 
given ; so that this order has become a perfect chaos to all who have not de- 
voted years to its exclusive study. The most important of those who have 
undertaken to remodel Compositae, are Cassini, who has written much upon 
them in the Dictionnaire des Sciences Naturelles, and elsewhere ; Kunth, whose 
arrangement will be found in Humboldt’s Nova Genera et Species Plantarum : 
Don who has written several detached papers upon them ; and Link, who has an 
airangement of his own in his Handbuch, vol. 1. p. 685. Tlie most profound 
writers upon their general structure are Cassini, and Brown, whose paper in 
the 1 2th volume of the Transactions of the Linnean Society is a masterpiece of 
careful investigation and acute reasoning. More recently the order has been 
revised in a most useful Synopsis by Lessing ; and it is now under the hands 
of the learned De Candolle, from whom, if it is in human power to disembroil 
the confused synonymy and unintelligible classifications of some of the Bo- 
tanists who have meddled with this most difficult order, every thing is to be 
expected. I am infinitely indebted to this most excellent man for a classified 
catalogue expressly drawn up for this work, of the genera and their synonyms 
as they stood in his manuscripts in the beginning of December, 1835. I am 
sure this will be hailed by all Botanists as a valuable forerunner of the great 
work upon which the author has now been engaged for so many years. I 
have not presumed to add a letter or a name to the list, but I have inserted 
in a supplement the genera whose names I do not find in it. 
Geography. All parts of the world abound in Compositae, but in very 
diflerent proportions. According to the calculations of Humboldt, they con- 
stitute ^ of the phaenogamous plants of France, i of Germany, of Lapland, 
in North America within the tropics of America ; upon the authority of 
Brown, they only form Flora of the north of New Holland, and 
did not exceed collection of plants formed by Smith upon the 
western coast of Africa in Congo. Congo, 445. In Sicily they constitute ra- 
