Aster. COMPOSITE. 185 



in Proc. Am. Acad. xvi. 99. Rocky islands and shores, northern part of Lake Champlain, 

 PriiKjle, E. Brainard. 



-1 H H Involucre of the numerous small and racemosely disposed heads -with squarrose or at 

 least sprewUmj herbaceous tips to the well-imbricated unequal bracts, these tips obtuse or merely 

 mucronate-apiculate : cauline leaves small, all linear and entire, not at all or scarcely narrowed 

 at the abrupt closely sessile or panly clasping base: akenes canescent-hirsute: herbage with 

 somewhat cinereous or hirtellous pubescence. Mult'ifloii. 



-H- Raj's amethystine-violet or purple : leaves not rigid. 



A. amethystillUS, NUTT. Cinereously puberuleut or the stems hirsutulous, 2 to 5 feet 

 high, paniculately much branched : heads 3 lines high : tips of involucral bracts merely 

 spreading, acutish, not ciliate : rays rather numerous, 3 lines long. Trans. Am. Phil. Soc. 

 (n. ser.) vii. 294; Torr. & Gray, Fl. ii. 144; Gray, Man. ed. 5, 234. Rather low grounds, 

 E. Massachusetts to Illinois and Iowa. This has been cult, in European gardens under the 

 names of ^1. pilosus and Bostoniensis. It has much the habit of A. oblongifolius, but is desti- 

 tute of viscidity and aroma. 



+4- -H- Rays white, rarely bluish or purple-tinged. 



A. multiflorus, AIT. Low (a foot or two high), bushy-branched, cinereous or green : leaves 

 rigid, scabrous- or hispid ulous-ciliate ; uppermost of the branchlets passing into involucral 

 bracts ; these mostly with obtuse tips : heads in the ordinary forms little over 2 (at most 3) 

 lines long, and with only 10 to 15 or 20 rays. Kew. iii. 203 ; Willd. Spec. iii. 2027 ; Torr. & 

 Gray, Fl. ii. 124, with var. xtri<'1i<:aulis, a slender strict furm of the North. A. cricoides, diinio.oi*, 

 Dill. Elth. t. 36. A. ericoides, L. spec, as to syn. Dill. ; Michx. Fl. ii. 113 ; Schk. Handh. 

 t. 245, & (var. innlt(fl<>rns) Pers. Syn. ii. 443. A. ciliatus, Muhl. in Willd. Spec. iii. 2027. 

 A. scoparius, DC. Prodr. v. 242, a rather strict slender-leaved Texan form. A. hebecladus, 

 DC. 1. c., a very small-leaved hirtellous Texano-Arizonian form. Dry or sterile ground, 

 Canada to Georgia and Texas, common throughout Atlantic States, southwest to Arizona, 

 northwest to Saskatchewan and Brit. Columbia. (Mex.) The most wide-spread species. 



A. COmmutatus. A foot or so high, with divergent branches : heads more scattered and 

 twice or even thrice the size of those of A. multiflorus (3 or 4 lines high and broad) : rays 

 20 to 30 : otherwise nearly as the preceding. A. multiflorus, var. commutatus, Torr. & Gray, 

 1. c., excl. syn. A. biennis, Torr. Ann. Lye. N. Y., at least mainly. A. ranudnsus, var. inca.no- 

 jii/osus, Liudl. in DC. Prodr. 1. c. & Hook. Fl. ii. 12. Plains and river-banks, Dakota and 

 Saskatchewan, to Utah and E. Oregon. Seems to pass into the preceding on one hand, and 

 into A. adscendens on the other. 



A. falcatus, LINDL. Much like a strict and simple-stemmed A. multiflorus, perhaps a high 

 northern form of it : leaves all narrowly linear, glabrate or sparingly and minutely (and the 

 stem more obviously) pubescent with soft somewhat appressed hairs : involucre broader, 

 glabrous ; its bracts thinner and looser ; outer herbaceous to near the base and as long as the 

 attenuate innermost. Torr. & Gray, Fl. ii. 126. A. falcatus & A. ramulosus (as to the type), 

 Lindl. in DC. Prodr. v. 241, 243, & Hook. Fl. ii. 12. Subarctic America, from Cumberland 

 House to Fort Franklin, near the Arctic Circle and Arctic coast, Richardson. 



H__ H +- -I Involucre of the small (2 or 3 lines high) and numerous heads nearly of the 

 Ileteroirftylli, pluriferial; the bracts not coriaceous, regularly and closely imbricated (miter suc- 

 cessively shorter), smooth and glabrous, mostly whitish below and with definite short green 

 tips, these not spreading: stems usually slender and not very tall; the branches divergent or di- 

 varicate (except in A. racemosus), and racemosely branched or racemosely capituliferous : leaves 

 from lanceolate to subulate, not cinereous nor more than minutely scabrous, commonly spread- 

 ing: all Atlantic species. Divergentes. 

 H- Heads more scattered and singly terminating the racemose or compound-paniculate minutely 



foliose slender branches. 



A. dumosus, L. Mostly quite glabrous and smooth, 1 to 3 feet high : leaves all entire and 

 obtuse, commonly reflexed or widely spreading ; the cauline linear (1 to 3 inches long and as 

 many lines wide), of rather firm texture ; those of branches and branchlets gradually smaller 

 and shorter; ultimate ones reduced to minute bracts: involucre campanulate or short-turbi- 

 nate (2 or 3 lines long), well imbricated and with very definite and broadish oval or oblong 

 green tips to the obtuse or sometimes barely acutish bracts : rays from violet to nearly- 

 white, 2 lines long. Spec. ii. 873 (with syn. mainly) ; Ait. Kew. iii. 202 ; Torr. & Gray, Fl. 



