[Bigelowia DC. Mem. Comp. pl. 5. 1833. Not Bigelovia Spreng. 1821.] Perennial stiff herbs, with alternate entire leaves, and corymbose-paniculate discoid heads of yellow flowers. • Involucre oblong or campanulate, its bracts rigid and glutinous, imbricated in several series. Receptacle flat, generally foveolate, naked. Corolla regular, tubular, the limb 5-cleft. Anthers obtuse at the base. Style-branches flattened, their appendages lanceolate. Achenes oblong, somewhat compressed, 1-2-ribbed on each side. Pappus of 1 or 2 series of numerous capillary unequal bristles. [Greek, cartilage-bearing.] Two species, native of eastern North America, the following typical.

1. Chondrophora Nudata (Michx.) Britton. Rayless Golden-Rod

Fig. 4203

Chrysocoma nudata Michx. Fl. Bor. Am. 2: 101. 1803.

Bigelowia nudata DC. Prodr. 5: 329. 1836.

C. nudata Britton, Mem. Torr. Club 5: 317. 1894.

Glabrous, erect, simple, 1°-21/2° high. Lower and basal leaves spatulate, obtuse, or obtusish, 3'-6' long, 3"-6" wide, attenuate into a margined petiole; stem leaves distant, small, linear or subulate; heads numerous, 2"-3" high, crowded in a compound terminal corymbose cyme; involucre narrowly campanulate, acute at the base, its bracts coriaceous, appressed, linear-oblong, imbricated in 3 or 4 series, the outer much smaller than the inner; achenes short-turbinate; pappus-bristles rigid; edges of the depressions in the receptacle prolonged into subulate teeth.

In moist pine-barrens, New Jersey ( ?) to Florida and Texas. Aug.-Oct.

Chondrophora virgata (Nutt.) Greene, with narrowly linear basal leaves, or some of them linear-spatulate, though originally cited by Nuttall as from New Jersey, is not definitely known from north of North Carolina.