COMPOSITE. 
181 
24. CREPIS, Linn. 
Heads of numerous yellow flowers all fertile and ligulate, Involucre 
between a cylinder and a cup, of one long and one short row of linear 
herbaceous scales. Eeceptacle flat, naked. Anthers not tailed. Style-arms 
terete. Achenes cylindrical, with many fine ribs ; pappus of a single 
row of soft white hairs. — Annual or perennial herbs, with milky juice, 
alternate leaves, the lower mostly pinnate or pinnatifid and copious heads 
in terminal corymbs. Disteib. Cosmopolitan, mostly Old World. 
Species 130. 
1. C. japonica, JBenth. FI. Austral, iii. 679. An annual herb, 1-8 feet 
high, with a few short hairs in the lower part. Leaves in a dense basal 
rosette, present with the flowers, membranous, pinnate-runcinate, 3-6 
in. long, the upper lobes connected, the lower free, deltoid, repand- 
denticulate. Stem fragile, branched low down, with a few distant reduced 
leaves. Flowers very numerous, in lax corymbs. Involucre £ in. long ; 
scales valvate, inner 8, outer 5, minute. Flowers in a head 12-16. 
Achene ^ in. long, narrowed to the tip ; pappus ± in. long, of copious 
soft white hairs. Youngia japonica, mauritiana, multiflora, Thunber- 
giana and fastigiata, DC. Y. lyrata, Cass. 
Mauritius, a frequent weed. Japan, Australia, Trop. Asia, Bourbon, etc. 
25. MICRORHYNCHUS, Less. 
Heads of few yellow flowers, all ligulate and perfect. Involucre 
cylindrical ; scales imbricated in 2-3 rows, lanceolate, thin, persistent. 
Eeceptacle flat, naked. Anthers sagittate at the base, not dis- 
tinctly tailed. Achenes glabrous, tetragono-cylindrical, not beaked; 
pappus of very abundant soft white hairs, deciduous in a ring. 
— Perennial herbs, with milky juice, leaves in a rosette at the base and 
from the nodes of long trailing stems ; heads few, scattered. Disteib. 
Warmer parts of the Old World. Species about 20. 
1. M. sarmentosus, DC. Prod. vii. 181. A glabrous perennial 
herb, with a fusiform milky root. Leaves in a dense basal rosette, ob- 
lanceolate, 2-3 in. long, subsessile, deeply pinnatifid, with few or many 
obtuse or subacute lobes. Stems slender, trailing to a length of a 
foot or more, rooting and producing smaller tufts of leaves from distant 
nodes. Heads 1-6 from a node, on short scaly pedicels. Involucre 
cylindrical, | in. long ; eight inner scales much the longest. Flowers 
10-12 in a head. Achenes glabrous, ^ in. long, not narrowed at all 
either to tip or base ; pappus i in. long, of very copious pure white 
hairs permanently connate at the base. Launsea pinnatifida, Cass. ; 
Bojer , Hort. Maur. 192. 
Mauritius, frequent on the sandy sea-shore ; lie aux Tonneliers and Flat Island. 
Also Tropical Asia, Madagascar, Bourbon, Zambesi-land. M. bellidifolius, DC. 
Prod. loc. cit., is a variety with the leaves nearly entire. 
Of the commonly-cultivated plants of this order, Cichorium Intybus , Tagetes 
patula , and Zinnia multifiora are enumerated amongst the introduced species' in 
Dupont’s Mauritian Catalogue. 
