To this and the next genus belong the true Everlasting Flowers or Immortelles, or at least those generally cultivated and sold under these names. The species we have to notice are all treated as annuals, and are tall leafy plants with solitary large flower-heads, in which the involucral bracts are spreading or recurved, or clustered and small with incurved bracts,

The involucral bracts are scarious, but not silvery or semi-transparent, and the angular achenes are not beaked, and the pappus is rough or pilose. Taken in its widest sense the genus comprehends nearly 300 species, mostly of an ornamental character; but we must confine ourselves to the two or three species in general cultivation. The name is from the sun, and

gold, in allusion to the flower-heads.

1. H. bractedtum (fig. 144). - This is the large-flowered species, of which there are white, yellow, pink, crimson, and other varieties in cultivation. H. acuminatum, macrocepha-lum and chrysanthum are considered as simple forms of this species. Australia.

Fig. 144. Helichrysum bracteatnm. (1/4 nat. size.)

2. H. apiculdtum, syn. Chrysocephalum helichrysoldes, Gnaphalium flavissimum, etc. - This is of rather dwarfer stature than the foregoing and covered with a silvery tomen-tum. But the great distinction lies in the small clustered yellow heads. Australia.

H. Staechas is a South European shrubby species, and H. petiolatum, syn. Gnaphalium lanatum, is the trailing species with woolly leaves commonly used for edging beds.