[++] Leaves numerous, short, sessile, entire, uniform in size and shape; western.
8. S. Bigelòvii, Gray. Cinereous-puberulent, 2° high; leaves oval and oblong, mostly obtuse at both ends; thyrse rather loose; involucre broad.—S. Kan. and southward. Probably running into the next.
9. S. Lindheimeriàna, Scheele. Less puberulent; leaves lanceolate or oblong, more acute; heads narrower and more densely clustered; achenes glabrous.—S. Kan. and southward.
[++][++] Northern or mountain species, bright green.
10. S. macrophýlla, Pursh. Stem stout (1–4° high), wand-like, pubescent near the summit, simple; leaves thin, ovate, irregularly and coarsely serrate with sharp salient teeth, large (lower 3–4´ long), all but the uppermost abruptly contracted into long and margined petioles; heads large (5–6´´ long), many-flowered, crowded in an oblong or wand-like raceme or contracted panicle (2–18´ long); scales loose and thin, long, lanceolate, taper-pointed; rays 8–10, elongated; achenes smooth. (S. thyrsoidea, E. Mey.)—Wooded sides of mountains, N. Maine to N. Y. (south to the Catskills), shore of L. Superior and northward.—Very near a European form of S. Virgaurea.
11. S. Virgaùrea, Linn. An extremely variable and confused species in the Old World, represented in North America by
Var. alpìna, Bigel. Dwarf (1–8´ high), with few (1–12) pretty large heads (3–4´´ long, becoming smaller as they increase in number); leaves thickish, mostly smooth, spatulate or obovate, mostly obtuse, finely serrate or nearly entire, the uppermost lanceolate; heads few in a terminal cluster or subsolitary in the upper axils; scales lanceolate, acute or acutish; rays about 12.—Alpine summits of Maine, N. H., and N. Y., and shore of L. Superior.
12. S. hùmilis, Pursh. Low (6–12´ high) and smooth, bearing several or numerous loosely thyrsoid smaller heads, which, with the peduncles, etc., are mostly somewhat glutinous; scales obtuse; rays 6–8, short; upper leaves lanceolate to linear, entire, the lower becoming spatulate and sparingly serrate. (S. Virgaurea, var. humilis, Gray.)—Rocky banks, W. Vt., along the Great Lakes, and northward; also on islands in the Susquehanna, near Lancaster, and at the Falls of the Potomac.—At the base of the White Mountains, on gravelly banks, occurs a form with the minutely pubescent stout stem 1–2° high, the leaves larger, broader, and coarsely toothed, and the heads very numerous in an ample compound raceme; rays occasionally almost white.
Var. Gillmàni, Gray. Larger (2° high), rigid, with compound ample panicle and laciniately toothed leaves.—Sand-hills of the lake-shores, N. Mich.
[+][+][+] Heads small or middle-sized (large in n. 13 and 17), panicled or sometimes thyrsoidal, not in a terminal corymbiform cyme; not alpine.