99- [ 6oo ]
S E N E C I O fqualidus.
Inelegant Ragwort.
S T N G E N E 3 1 A Polygamia-fuperJTua.
Gen. C har. Recept. naked. Down Ample. Cal. cylindrical,
fcaly at the bafe; fcales dead at the tip.
Spec. Char. Radius fpreading, longer than the calyx ;
its florets elliptical and entire. Leaves pinna-
tifid; their fegments diftant, fomewhat linear.
Syn. Senecio fqualidus. Linn. Sp>. PI. 1218. Hort.
Upf. 260.
T h i s Senecio grows abundantly on almoft every wall in and
about Oxford, and though long fince noticed there by Sir Jo-
feph Banks, it has not found its way into the Flora Oxonienjis,
nor hitherto into any other. A careful companion with the
herbarium of Linnseus thews it to be his fqualidus, feeds of
which he received from Dillenius with a manufcript name of
Jacob re a laciniatis foliis, tanaceti odore, before the publication
of his Hort. Upfalienjis, in which work he guefles it to be a
native of the South of Europe. Moft probably Dillenius collected
thefe feeds from the walls of Oxford. I f it were at that
time only a garden plant there, it could fcarcely have now totally
left the garden, and ettablithed itfelf fo perfectly elfewhere.
It is at firft fight fo like a variety of S. Jacob re a, that Dillenius,
as well as the late Prof. Sibthorp, might not dare to infert it
in their works on wild plants. W e have not materials to determine
whether it may be the S. gallicus of Villars, v. 3 . 230.
The root is annual or biennial. Stem various in luxuriance,
ereCt, branched, often a little hairy. Leaves embracing the
ftem, deeply pinnatifid, narrow, dentate, nearly fmooth, flat,
rather flefhy, often purplifh beneath. Flowers folitary at the
end of terminal, ftraggling, braCteated, corymbofe ftalks. Calyx
fmooth, almoft hemifphasrical, its outer fcales few and fmall.
Inner florets very numerous. Thofe of the radius broad, fpreading,
elliptical, entire, of a bright golden yellow, at length reflexed.
Thefe florets, and indeed its whole hahit and a peculiar
fmell, fomewhat like Tanfy or Mugwort, make the plant
fufficiently diftinCt.
It flowers from June to the very end of Autumn. Our fpe-
cimens were gathered by A, B. Lambert, Efq.