14 Rhodora [JANUARY 
solitary on elongate pedicels which are naked or have 1 or 2 large 
dilated foliaceous bracts, and the essentially equal herbaceous or folia- 
ceous involucral bracts. This plant with few long-pediceled heads is 
quite as variable as other species of its affinity, but in spite of its great 
variability it holds within the Hudsonian and Canadian area indicated 
the characters above defined and seems to be a pronounced trend such 
as is ordinarily considered a species in the genus Aster. The lower 
plants from alpine, subalpine and more northern habitats, with the 
“short monocephalous branches leafy about the heads,” ! exactly 
coincide with authentic material from the original Alaskan localities 
of A. foliaceus Lindl.; while in some colonies the plants are an exact 
match for the original specimens of the Rocky and Cascade Mountain 
var. frondeus Gray, having the tall stems bearing “ample” leaves 
1-1.5 dm. long and 2-3.5 em. broad and many of the heads on long 
almost erect naked or nearly naked pedicels (often 5-15 em. long). 
One of the eastern variants with foliage as in var. frondeus departs 
from that variety in its loosely arching pedicels; another strongly 
suggests the original Parry specimens (no. 417) from Colorado of var. 
Parryi Gray but differs from that little known plant in its more uni- 
form foliage; another variant from the Gaspé coast with short crenate 
leaves and nearly uniformly leafy pedicels and outer involucral 
bracts, is an extreme departure from the others and simulates none of 
the western varieties known to the writer, while a fourth tendency, 
from western Newfoundland, has the unusually small heads mostly 
in pairs at the tips of the pedicels and the involucres almost lacking 
the enlarged foliaceous outer bracts. 
These four undescribed northeastern varieties are so pronounced in 
their characters as to merit special designation as 
A. FOLIACEUS Lindl., var. arcuans, n. var., caule 0.6-1 m. alto 
superne flexuoso; foliis tenuibus rhomboideo-lanceolatis acuminatis 
remote serratis, mediis 1-2 dm. longis 2-3.5 em. latis; ramis pedi- 
celisque laxe arcuato-adscendentibus, pedicellis 3-9 cm. longis 
monocephalis efoliatis vel remote cum 1-3 foliis oblongis instructis; 
involucro 8-10 mm. alto, bracteis lanceolatis herbaceis vel exterioribus 
foliaceis elongatisque. 
Stem 0.6-1 m. high, flexuous above: leaves thin, rhombic-lanceo- 
late, acuminate, remotely serrate; the median 1-2 dm. long, 2-3.5 
cm. wide; branches and pedicels loosely arcuate-ascending; the ped- 
icels 3-9 em. long, monocephalous, naked or remotely provided with 
1 Gray, Syn. Fl. i., pt. 2, 193 (1884). 
