Verbesina
(altered from Verbena, which some of the species are supposed to resemble). Crown Beard. Including Platypteris and Ximenesia. ORD. Compositae. A genus comprising about fifty species of stove, green-house, or hardy, annual or perennial herbs, sub-shrubs, or rarely shrubs, inhabiting the warmer parts of America. Flower-heads yellow, or the ray florets white; involucral bracts oblong or linear, in few series; receptacle convex or conical, paleaceous; ray florets ligulate, spreading, entire or two or three-toothed; achenes glabrous or pilose. Leaves opposite or the upper ones (or all) alternate, petiolate, sessile, or decurrent, toothed, lobed, or rarely entire. Few of the species possess any horticultural value. Those described below are, with the exception of V. encelioides, perennials. All thrive in rich soil, and may be increased by seeds, the perennials also by divisions.
V. alata (winged). fl.-heads sub-globose, solitary, terminal; ray florets orange-yellow, numerous, sub-biseriate. August. l. alternate, long-decurrent, oblong or obovate, obtuse, undulated and sinuate-toothed, nearly glabrous. Stem winged. h. 2ft. West Indies, &c., 1699. Stove. (B. M. 1716.) V. crocata (yellow). fl.-heads orange-yellow, solitary, globose. Summer. l. opposite, decurrent, irregularly pinnately lobed; lobes oval, erose-dentate, the terminal one somewhat deltoid. Branches four-winged. h. 2ft. Mexico, 1812. Stove. SYNS. Platypteris crocata, Spilanthes crocata (B. M. 1627). V. encelioides (Encelia-like). fl.-heads yellow, disposed in a somewhat corymbose manner; achenes of the rays wingless, three-toothed, those of the disk winged, two-awned. August. l. ovate or oblong, coarsely serrated; petioles broadly winged, auricled at base. Stem erect, 2ft. to 3ft. high. Mexico, 1785. A canescent, greenhouse annual. SYN. Ximenesia encelioides. V. pinnatifida (pinnatifid-leaved). fl.-heads pale yellow; involucral scales blackish, linear-lanceolate, acute; rays about twelve, oblong; panicles opposite, branched, corymbose at apex. August. l. opposite, long-decurrent, pinnatifid, long-cuneate at base, hairy-puberulous on both sides, especially on the nerves. Stem four-winged, tomentose. h. 3ft. Mexico, 1826. Green-house. V. sativa (cultivated). A synonym of Veslingia sativa. V. virginica (Virginian). fl.-heads white, in compound corymbs; ray florets three or four, oval. August. l. alternate, ovate lanceolate, feather-veined, toothed or lobed, decurrent, below, as well as the narrowly or interruptedly-winged stem, downy-pubescent. h. 2ft. North America, 1812. Hardy.