Involucre obconically-companulate; scales loosely imbricated in about two to three series; the exterior unequal, calyculate, suborbicular, oval, or oblong, obtuse; the inner series (of about eight) sub-equal, oblong-lanceolate, obtuse; scarious margins entire; (a broad, diffusely green line marks the centre). Receptacle naked, alveolate, alveoli, toothed. Achenia (mature wanting), oblong, sub-cuneate, or sub-obovate, somewhat compressed (?), slightly contracted at the crown, smooth, sub-pubescent above, on a short stipe. Pappus double; the exterior coroniform, persistent—a hyaline crateriform cup, with an even but minutely crenulate edge; interior of five (white) plumose, glabrous bristles, gradually dilating towards the base.
Californian herbs, with runcinately, pinnatifid, radical leaves, and numerous naked scapes, bearing solitary, tigulate, yellow flowers; closely allied to Malacothrix and Calycoseris, but with a plumose pappus.
P. runcinatus Kellogg. [[Fig. 4.]]
Fig. 4.
Acaulescent, several naked scapes, two to four inches high, sub-glabrous, (rarely a few scattering glandular hairs); leaves radical, runcinately pinnatifid, lobes spinulose, frosty, or sub-wooly, pubescent, three to seven-nerved, short petioles winged, dilated at the base; rosulate, from a simple perennial somewhat fusiform root.
Professor Whitney exhibited a new mass of meteoric iron, found near La Paz, on the Colorado River, in New Mexico, by Hermann Ehrenberg, Esq. A description and analysis will be furnished at a future meeting.