Crepis barbata. Bearded Crepis, or Purple-eyed Succory-Hawkweed.

Class and Order:

Syngenesia Polygamia aequalis.

Generic Character:

Recept. nudum. Cal. calyculatus squamis deciduis. Pappus plumosus, stipitatus.

Specific Character and Synonyms:

CREPIS barbata involucris calyce longioribus: squamis setaceis sparsis. Lin. Syst. Vegetab. p. 719.

HIERACIUM proliferum falcatum. Bauh. Pin. 128.

HIERACIUM calyce barbato. Col. ecphr. 2. p. 28. t. 27. f. 1.

HIERACIUM boeticum medio nigro. Herm. Parad. Bat. 185. t. 185.

Grows spontaneously in the south of France, about Montpelier; also, in Spain, Italy, Sicily, and elsewhere in the south of Europe: is one of the most common annuals cultivated in our gardens. It begins flowering in July, and continues to blossom till the frost sets in.

No other care is necessary in the cultivation of this species than sowing the seeds in the spring, in little patches, on the borders where they are to remain, thinning them if they prove too numerous.

Miller calls this species boetica, and improperly describes the centre of the flower as black, as also does Herman: in all the specimens we have seen, it has evidently been of a deep purple colour, or, as Linnaeus expresses it, atropurpurascens.