Prenanthes
(from prenes, drooping, and anthos, a flower; on account of the dropping flower-heads). Including Harpalyce and Nabalus. ORD. Compositae. A genus comprising about sixteen species of hardy, erect, often tall and sub-scandent, glabrous or rarely hispid herbs, of which six inhabit Central Europe, the East Indies, and the Canary Islands, and the rest are North American. Flower-heads homogamous, purple, violet, white, or yellowish-white, often slender, drooping, loosely paniculate, rarely in sheathed, racemiform, erect panicles; style often long-exserted; involucre cylindrical, often narrow; receptacle flat, naked. Leaves alternate, mostly petiolate, sagittate-cordate, deeply pinnatifid or lyrate, or the upper ones narrow, sessile, and auriculate-amplexicaul. The species are not particularly ornamental. They thrive in any ordinary garden soil. All may be increased by seeds, sown in the open border, and the perennial species also by division. Those described below are perennials.
P. alba (white). fl.-heads white; involucre purplish, of about eight scales; pappus deep cinnamon. Late summer and autumn. l. angulate or triangular-halbert-form, sinuate-toothed, or three to five-cleft. Stem corymbose-panicled at summit. h. 2ft. to 4ft. North America, 1762. (B. M. 1079.) P. purpurea (purple).* fl.-heads purple, disposed in loose panicles, long-stalked, nodding. August. l. oblong-lanceolate, cordate-amplexicaul, sub-denticulate, glaucous beneath. h. 4ft. Europe, 1658. (J. F. A. 317.) P. virgata (twiggy). fl.-heads lilac, clustered, and mostly unilateral; involucre purplish, of about eight scales. August. l. lanceolate, acute, closely sessile, the upper ones reduced to bracts, the lower ones toothed or pinnatifid. Stem simple, 2ft. to 4ft. high. North America, 1823.