The order Compositæ is a very large one, above seven thousand species having been named and described; and to assist the memory in retaining the names of this great number of plants, various means have been devised for dividing the order into sections and tribes. The principal botanists who have proposed means of arranging this order, are Cassini, Lessing, and lastly the late Professor De Candolle, in three volumes of his _Prodromus_ published in 1840. But as the distinctions between the divisions proposed, lie in the difference found in the stigmas and pappus of the different genera, I have judged them too troublesome for my readers, as I am sure they are for myself, and I have preferred following the plan adopted by Dr. Lindley in his _Elements of Botany_, published in 1841, and dividing the Compositæ into four tribes; viz., the three originally proposed by Jussieu, and a fourth added by Professor De Candolle, containing the plants with bilabiate florets, which were either not known, or overlooked, by Jussieu. It may perhaps be necessary to add, that this arrangement forms the basis of the new one proposed by De Candolle, and that the principal difference consists in the subdivisions. TRIBE I.—CICHORACEÆ. _Florets ligulate. Juice milky, narcotic._ The plants contained in this tribe bear more or less resemblance to the common Succory (_Cichorium Intybus_). This beautiful plant, which is found in great abundance wild in many of the sandy and chalky districts of England, has large bright blue flowers, which when examined will be found to consist of a number of florets, all of the kind called ligulate, that is somewhat like a cornet of paper; the upper part being broad and flat, and serrated at the edge. The pappus in this genus is very short, and it is scaly rather than feathery. The leaves are bitter, and when broken give out a milky juice; and the fleshy roots when roasted are used to adulterate coffee. The Endive is a variety of this species, or another species of the same genus. The Sowthistle (_Sonchus oleraceus_) abounds in the same milky juice as the succory, and has the same kind of fleshy root. The flower is composed of a scaly involucre (shown at _a_ in _fig._ 43) and a number of ligulate florets (see _b_), which when they fall show the pappus (_c_), forming a feathery ball. The manner in which the pappus is attached to the seed-vessel is shown at (_d_); and the receptacle after the florets have been pulled out, but with the involucre still attached to it, at (_e_). A detached floret is shown at (_f_). The Dandelion (_Leontodon Taraxacum_) differs from the Sowthistle: in its florets, which are flatter and looser; in its receptacle, which is globular; and above all, in its pappus, which is what is called stipitate or stalked, that is, the tubular part of its calyx rises to a considerable height above the capsule, before it becomes divided into its feathery segments, as shown in _fig._ 44. The leaves of this plant are what is called