Perennial, often tufted, simple or branched herbs, with basal or alternate, entire leaves, and large long-peduncled discoid heads of purple, pink or white, glandular-pubescent flowers. Involucre hemispheric or broadly campanulate, its bracts in 1 or 2 series, herbaceous, narrow, nearly equal. Receptacle convex or at length conic, chaffy, the scales narrow, rigid, distinct. Rays none. Flowers all perfect and fertile, their corollas with a deeply 5-lobed or 5-parted campanulate limb and a slender tube. Anthers minutely sagittate at the base. Style-branches long, truncate. Achenes turbinate, 5-ribbed and 5-angled. Pappus of 5 or 6 acute or acuminate, ovate or lanceolate-deltoid, nearly entire scales. [Named for Humphrey Marshall, of Pennsylvania, botanical author.]

About 6 species, natives of the central United States. Type species: Marshallia Schreberi Gmel.

Leaves ovate, oval, or ovate-lanceolate, 3-nerved.

1. M. trinervia.

Leaves linear, lanceolate, or the basal spatulate, or obovate. Chaff of the receptacle linear; leaves linear; western.

2. M. caespi osa.

Chaff of the receptacle broader; leaves obovate to lanceolate; eastern.

3. M. grandiflora.

1. Marshallia Trinervia (Walt.) Porter. Broad-Leaved Marshallia

Fig. 4524

Athanasia trinervia Walt. Fl. Car. 201. 1788. Marshallia Schreberi Gmelin, Syst. 1208. 1791. Marshallia latifolia Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept. 519. 1814. Marshallia trinervia Porter, Mem. Torr. Club 5: 337. 1894.

Stem simple, or little branched, leafy to or beyond the middle, 1°- 2° high. Leaves thin, those of the stem ovate, oval or ovate-lanceolate, 3-nerved, acute or acuminate at the apex, narrowed to a sessile base, 2-3' long, 9"- 18" wide; heads 1/2' - 1' broad, corolla purplish; bracts of the involucre linear-lanceolate, acute, rigid; chaff of the receptacle subulate-filiform; pappus scales lanceolate-acuminate from a triangular base; achenes glabrous when mature.

In dry soil, Virginia to Alabama and Mississippi. May-June.

2. Marshallia Caespitosa Nutt Narrow-Leaved Marshallia

Fig. 4525

Marshallia caespitosa Nutt.; DC. Prodr. 5: 680. 1836.

Stems usually tufted and simple, sometimes sparingly branched, leafy either only near the base or to beyond the middle, 8'-15' high. Leaves thick, mostly basal, faintly 3-nerved, linear or linear-spatulate, obtuse, sometimes 4' long and 3" wide, the upper ones linear, acutish, shorter; head about 1' broad, borne on a peduncle often 10' long; corollas pale rose or white; bracts of the, involucre linear-lanceolate, acute or acutish; chaff of the receptacle linear, or slightly dilated above; achenes villous on the angles; scales of the pappus ovate, acutish, equalling or longer than the achene.

Prairies and hills, Missouri and Kansas to Texas. May-June.

3. Marshallia Grandiflora Beadle & Boynton. Large-Flowered Marshallia

Fig. 4526

Marshallia grandiflora Beadle & Boynton, Biltmore Bot. Stud. 1: 7. 1901.

Stem simple, 1°- 2° high, leafy to above the middle. Lower and basal leaves obovate to oblong-lanceolate, tapering into petioles often as long as the blade, obtuse or obtusish; upper leaves lanceolate, sessile, or more or less clasping; florets slightly larger than those of M. trinervia, 7"- 10" long; achenes larger, 2"-2i" long, pubescent.

In moist soil, Pennsylvania to West Virginia and North Carolina. July-Aug.

Marshallia obovata (Walt.) Beadle & Boynton, a lower plant of the Southern States, with obovate or spatulate leaves mainly basal, is recorded as extending northward to southwestern Pennsylvania