LI. DIPSACEiE 
241 
limb scarious, pubescent, funnel-shaped, 16-20-ribbed. Calyx- 
limb consisting of 5 long, spreading, rough bristles. Corolla 
pubescent, 5-lobed, that of the outer flowers larger and more 
unequally lobed than of the inner. Stamens 4. Stigma capitate. 
Achenes minute, enclosed within the base of the spreading, disk- 
like involucel and crowned by the persistent calyx-limb. 
W. Himalaya, 3000-5000 ft. ; May- July. 
Allied to the British Small Scabious, S. Columbaria. 
LII. COMPOSITE 
Herbs or shrubs. Leaves alternate or opposite, rarely whorled, 
simple or compound ; stipules none. Flowers usually numerous 
and small, crowded in a simple head on the dilated summit of the 
stalk or receptacle, surrounded by an involucre of bracts ; or in a 
compound head, having the appearance of a simple head, but 
composed of a number of small, involucrate or component heads, 
containing one or about 12 flowers each. Simple heads are of 
three kinds : — (1) discoid heads, all the flowers tubular and alike, 
the outer flowers sometimes more slender than the inner ; (2) 
radiate heads, the outer or ray-flowers ligulate, i.e. having the lobes 
of the corolla united in a strap-shaped ligule and the inner or disk- 
flowers tubular ; (3) ligulate heads, all the flowers ligulate. 
Involucral bracts in one or several series. Receptacle naked, 
bristly or bearing scales or floral bracts, one for each flower, the base 
usually enclosing the ovary. Flowers of a head all 2-sexuaJ ; or the 
outer flowers female or neuter and the inner ones 2-sexual or male ; 
or, rarely, the heads or the whole plant bearing 1 -sexual flowers. 
Calyx-tube adnate to the ovary ; limb wanting or appearing as 
a pappus of hairs, bristles or scales. Corolla tubular or ligulate, 
inserted on the ovary ; limb toothed or lobed. Stamens 5, rarely 
4, attached to the corolla-tube ; filaments usually free ; anthers 
cohering in a tube sheathing the style, rarely free, 2-celled, base 
of each cell sometimes tailed or prolonged downwards in a minute 
bristle. Ovary 1 -celled ; style linear, usually divided at the top 
in two stigmatic arms ; ovule solitary. Fruit a small, dry, 1 -seeded 
not or achene, usually crowned with the pappus, sometimes pro- 
longed upwards in a beak. — A very large Order inhabiting all 
parts of the world ; more than a thousand genera have been 
described. — Name from the Latin compositus , compound, referring 
to the heads. 
The flowers of most Composite are adapted for cross-fertilisation by insects. 
See Muller’s Fertilisation of Flowers, pp. 315-364 ; Kerner’s Natural History 
of Plants , ii. 318, &c. ; Lubbock’s British Wild Flowers in Relation to Insects 
p. 111. 
R 
