190 COMPOSITE. Aster. 



the wild ; and a dwarf form, very floriferous, with small leaves and small heads, is A. c(rsj'- 

 tosus of the gardens (as cited by Liudley under A. culn/ti riniia), probably the parent also of 

 A. Novi-Beftjii, var. minimus, of the gardens, with rose-purple rays. Saline marshes and 

 shores, Canada and Xew England to Georgia : evidently passes into the thinner-leaved form 

 taken as the tvpe, wherever it recedes from the influence of brackish water. The old culti- 

 vated forms evidently much altered in the European gardens. 



Var. el6d.es. Slender, a foot or two high and simple, sometimes taller and with 

 simpler panicle : leaves thickish, long and narrowly linear (2 to 5 inches long, 2 or 3 lines 

 wide), entire; those of flowering branches or open panicle small and bract-like : involucre of 

 rather well-imbricated narrow bracts, with short and mostly spreading acutisli tips. A. 

 elodrx, Ton: & Gray, Fl. ii. 136, chiefly. A. longifoltus, Gray, Man. 233, in part, not Lam. 

 Swamps near the coast, Xew Jersey to Virginia. Would seem to be a most distinct species ; 

 but passes by gradations into forms of the type of the species, with narrow-lanceolate den- 

 ticulate leaves of thinner texture; and the broad-leaved var. of Torr. & Gray, 1. c., into the 

 preceding variety. 



Var. thyrsiflorus. Very leafy, smooth : cauline leaves narrowly lanceolate or 

 nearly linear (2 to 4 inches long, 2 to 4 lines wide below the middle), attenuate-acuminate, 

 commonly serrulate, of rather firm texture: heads numerous in a narrow thyrsoid panicle, 

 or somewhat racemosely paniculate on elongated branches, rather large : involucre of the 

 narrow bracts with attenuate and spreading or squarrose-recnrving tips, as in the typical form. 

 A. ihyrsiflorus, Hoffm. Phyt. Blatt. i. 83, t. D, f. 1 (yet figure and description answer 

 rather to a broader-leaved form, either of the type or of the var. loEvigatus) ; Poir. Suppl. 

 i. 502; Nees, Ast. 65; DC. Prodr. v. 235, with var. squarrosiis, Lindl. in DC. (A. eminens, 

 Lindl. Bot. Reg. t. 1614, with abnormally fbliose involucre.) A. spectabilis, Willd. Spec. 

 iii. 2048, as to descr. (not char.) & herb., not Ait. Said to come from Virginia : cultivated 

 plants not matched by indigenous specimens. 



= = Pacific or Rocky Mountain species. 



a. Involucre of the middle-sized or small heads conspicuously and regularly pluriserially imbri- 

 cated; outer bracts successively shorter; all loosely erect or little spreading, and with obtuse or 

 obtusish mostly short and broadish herbaceous tips (occasionally in early or less developed 

 heads some outer bracts foliaceous): leaves entire, or lower sometimes slightly serrate. 



1. Heads mostly half-inch high, hemispherical, loosely paniculate: leaves comparatively large, 

 none broadened at the insertion. 



A. Chamissonis, GRAY. Rather tall (2 to 4 feet high), with loosely spreading branches 

 and branchlets, pubescent with spreading hairs or glabrate : leaves bright green, broadly 

 lanceolate (larger cauliue 3 to 6 inches long and an inch or less broad, those of flowering 

 branchlets small) : bracts of the broad involucre all but inner with obtuse and oval or appar- 

 ently spatulate obtuse green tips (coarser and looser than in the next) : rays bright violet, 

 4 to 6 lines long. -- Torr in Wilkes Exped. xvii. 341 ; Bot. Calif, i. 324. A. radula, Less. 

 in Linn. vi. 125, fide Nees. A. Chilensis, Xees, Ast. 133 ; Torr. & Gray, Fl. ii. 112, but not 

 at all Chilian. A. sj^r/iil,i/ix, Hook. & Am. Bot. Beech. 146, not Ait. A. Neesii, Schultz 

 Bip. in Flora, 1856, 354, name merely suggested. Moist thickets and along streams, Cali- 

 fornia toward the coast, for nearly the whole length of the State, apparently reaching 

 Oregon; first coll. by llanke and C'Ituinix*. 



2. Heads smaller, 3 to 5 lines high. 



A. Menziesii, LIM>L. A foot or two high, strict, from cinereous-pubescent throughout 

 to ahno>t glabrous, bearing mostly numerous or thyrsoidly racemose-paniculate and rather 

 small brads on rigid erect branchlets or peduncles : leaves lanceolate or the lower spatulate- 

 ol,]ong (2 or 3 inches long), on the branches small and linear or reduced to linear-subulate, 

 so that the well-developed panicle is comparatively naked: involucre seldom over 3 lines 

 high, short-turhinate, of linear slightly spatulate bracts in several rather closely imbricated 

 ranks, iir;irly all obtuse : rays violet or purple, 3 lines long. Hook. Fl. ii. 12, & DC. Prodr. 

 v. 243; Torr. Gray, Fl. ii. 113 (described from the original, starved and arid, cinereous- 

 cancscent specimens, collected by Mnr.u.-< in California, not "Oregon"); Torr. in Wilkes 

 Exped. xvii. t. 8 (a similar form, collected on the Sacramento) ; Gray, Bot. Calif, i. 324. 

 A. Dni-andii, Nutt. ex Durand in Pacif. Ii. l!rp. v. 8. Has been sometimes taken for A. 

 falcntus. Dry or moist ground, throughout California to W. Nevada. There are connect- 

 ing forms between this and the preceding, and others verging to the following. 



