[Illustration: PURPLE DANDELION]
Plants with milky juice; all flowers strap-shaped, in dense heads,
surrounded by involucral bracts; corolla 5-lobed; stamens 5; ovary
inferior.
Purple Dandelion. Flowering Straw (_Lygodesmia texana_) can nearly
always be found in the prairie sections of the state from spring to
fall, but the lovely flowers seldom make a showy display along the
roadsides. Only one head blooms at a time on the slender forking stems,
and that remains open only in the mornings. The heads are made up of
8-12 pale purple strap-shaped corollas, with the lavender styles
conspicuously erect in the center. The tip of the corolla is divided
into five minute lobes. The stems are almost leafless but have a cluster
of short-lobed, narrow gray-green leaves at the base.
Small-Flowered Straw (_Ptiloria pauciflora_) is a white-flowered chicory
with low spreading stems. It is abundant in West Texas and New Mexico.
[Illustration: FALSE DANDELION]
Many-Stemmed False Dandelion (_Sitilias multicaulis_) has lemon-yellow
flower heads which closely resemble those of the true dandelion, but the
plants grow much taller and are often widely branched. From early spring
through June, the false dandelion is very abundant on the coastal and
western prairies. The heads are made up of several rows of strap-shaped
corollas. The fruits are narrow and have attached a spreading tuft of
bristles which makes the head in fruit look like a puff ball of lace.
This tuft is a parachute device for scattering the seeds far and wide.
White Dandelion (_Pinaropappus roseus_) has flower heads very much like
those of the yellow dandelions, but the flowers vary in color from white
to pale pink, and the heads are larger. It is very abundant in March and
April in Southwest-Central Texas.
Several garden plants belong to the chicory family, among them being
lettuce, salsify, and chicory. The orange hawkweed is often cultivated
for ornament.