Flora Medica

PULICARIA.peaches. Stem 12 or 18 inches high, round, branched, leafy, cottony,corymbose at the summit, with many bright yellow flower-heads, whosedisk is of rather a deeper hue than their numerous narrow spreadingrays. Leaves spreading, acute, veiny and wrinkled, slightly toothed orserrated, 1 or 2 inches long, sessile, clasping the stem with their heartshaped,or arrow-shaped, base ;the under side cottony. Involucralscalesnumerous, very narrow and acute, woolly. Fruits bristly, obovate.Pappus rough. Receptacle slightly cellular, unequally toothed, or scaly.Linnaeus states, on the authority of General Keith (Flora Suecica,ed. ii. 294.), that this cured the Russian army of the dysentery. ButHaller speaks contemptuously of the medical virtues of the plant,because, as he says, it abounds in earthy matter. Smith.BIDENS.Head many-flowered either ; homogamous and discoidal, ormore frequently both the one and the other in the same species.Florets of the ray ligulate and neuter. Involucral scales in 2 rows,which are alike or unlike. Receptacle flattish, paleaceous.Branches of style terminated by a short cone. Achaenium moreor less obcompressed, aculeate, terminated by a beak scarcelydistinguishable from the achaenium, and ending in from 2 to 5awns, which are rigid and rough backwards.921. B. tripartita Linn. sp. pi. 1165. Eng. Bot. t. 1113.Smith Eng. Flora iii. 398. DC. prodr. v. 594. B. radiataThuill.fi. par. ed. 2. 422. Ditches and wet places throughoutEurope, the Caucasus, Dahuria and Siberia. (Bur Marigold.)Root tapering, with many fibres. Stem 2 or 3 feet high, erect,angular, solid, smooth, leafy, with opposite axillary branches. Leavesopposite, on winged footstalks, dark-green, smooth, strongly serrated,acute, in 3 deep segments, sometimes 5 the ; uppermost or lowermostgenerally undivided. Flower-heads terminal, solitary, of a brownishyellow,somewhat drooping, devoid of beauty and of fragrance, eachsurrounded by about 8 spreading, lanceolate, serrated or entire bracteas,unequal in size, but all extending much beyond the flower-head.Achaenia with 2 or 3 prickly angles, and as many erect bristles, likewiseprickly with reflexed hooks, by which the achaenia stick like burs toany rough surface, and are said sometimes to injure fish, by gettinginto their gills. Smith. The whole plantis acrid and when chewedexcites salivation powerfully.922. B. chrysanthemoides Michx.fi.bor. amer. ii. 136. Hookerjl. bor. am. i. 31-k DC. prodr. v. 595 Coreopsis Bidenscar.Walt.fi.215. Rice grounds and swamps of Carolina.A smooth, erect annual. Leaves oblong, taperingto each end,toothed, subserrate, connate at base. Head cernuous, radiant. Outerinvolucral scales oblong, stiffly ciliated, spreading; inner oval, membranousat the margin. Rays elliptical, twice as long as the involucre.Achsenia scabrous backwards, 2-awned, DC. Has the same propertiesas the last.457