1030 COMPOSITAE. | Taraxacum. 
Anthers sagittate at the base, not tailed. Achenes cylindric or fusiform, 
longitudinally grooved, muricate, narrowed at the base, above drawn out 
into a long and slender beak. Pappus-hairs copious, simple, white. 
A genus of from 40 to 50 species, mainly found in Europe and Asia; much rarer 
in North America, Africa, and Australia. The single New Zealand species is also 
found in temperate South America. 
1. T. magellanicum Comm. in Schultz Bipont. in Flora xxxviti (1855) 
122.—Very variable in size, 14-8in. high. Root rather stout, simple or 
few-headed, neck scarcely scaly, glabrous or sparingly woolly. Leaves 
all radical, rosulate, glabrous or slightly puberulous beneath, thin and 
membranous, 2-4in. long, 4-?in. broad, lanceolate or linear-oblong in 
outline, narrowed towards the base, sparingly toothed but usually runcinate- 
pinnatifid, the broad triangular lobes pointing downwards, the terminal 
lobe much the largest. Scapes single or many, erect or inclined, at the time 
of flowering about equalling the leaves, younger ones pubescent, older 
glabrescent. Heads 4-3in. diam. JInvolucral scales in 2 series, often 
tinged with red, and the margins more or less membranous; inner series 
in a single row, narrow-linear, strict, erect; outer series in several rows, 
broader, ovate or nearly so, acute, erect and appressed. Florets numerous, 
Achenes linear-oblong, grooved, muricate.—Handel-Mazettt Monog. Tarazx. 
(1907) 56. TT. officinale var. palustzis 7. Kirk Students’ Fl. (1899) 361. 
T. Dens-leonis Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i (1853) 152; Handb. N.Z. Fl. (1864) 
165 (in part, but not of Lam.). . officinale Cheesem. Man. N.Z. Fl. (1906) 
743 
387 (in part, but not of Wigq.). Reo AernAne 
NoRTH AND Sourn IsLanps, Stewart Istanp, CHaTHam Is~tanps: From Mercury 
Bay and the East Cape southwards, not uncommon in mountain districts, rarer in the 
lowlands, ascends to 4000 ft. Dandelion. November—February. 
Also a native of South America, stretching from the Andes of Chile to Patagonia, 
Fuegia, and the Falkland Islands. It has also been reported from Australia. In New 
Zealand it is usually confused with the common English Dandelion (Taraxacum vulgare), 
which, although originally a native of Europe and western Asia, has of late vears 
followed the footsteps of Man all round the world. But 7. vulgare (which is now 
abundant in cultivated fields throughout the Dominion) can always be distinguished 
from the New Zealand plant by its much larger size and more succulent habit, and 
particularly by the exterior bracts of the involucre being linear, not margined, and 
more or less reflexed. In 7. magellanicum the exterior bracts are conspicuously 
margined, and always erect and appressed. 
1. TH DSM" 
30. SONCHUS Tourn. ;7S > 
Erect leafy annual or perennial succulent herbs, juice milky. Leaves 
alternate or radical, entire or toothed or pinnatifid; cauline often amplex- 
icaul. Heads peduncled, in terminal irregularly branched corymbs or 
panicles, homogamous. Involucre ovoid, usually becoming conical after 
flowering ; bracts imbricated in several series, the outer smaller. Receptacle 
flat, naked. Florets all ligulate. Anthers shortly tailed at the base. 
Achenes ovoid or ellipsoid, more or less compressed, ribbed and often trans- 
versely rugose, not beaked. Pappus-hairs copious, in many series, soft, 
white, simple. 
e Species from 40 to 45, mostly natives of the temperate regions of the Northern 
amr ast a few spread over the whole world, but probably naturalized in many 
istricts. One of the New Zealand Species is endemic, the two others are cosmopolitan. 
