COMPOSITE FAMILY 



COMPOSITE COMPOSITE FAMILY 



Aster dumosus, L. 



White or lilac-white Bushy Aster, 



Rice-button Aster. 

 August-October 



Aster: for derivation see concolor. 



Dumosus: Latin, meaning full of brambles or thorns. 



THE PREFERRED HABITAT: dry, sandy soil of the road- 

 sides, and Commons; waste ground. 



THE PLANT: erect, one foot to two feet high; the stem 

 freely branched, rather stiff, slender, hairless or very 

 nearly so, sticky. 



THE LEAVES: alternate; crowded; those of the stem linear, 

 or the upper oblong or linear-lanceolate; the basal one 

 spatulate; one inch to three inches long; acute or acutish 

 at the apex; the basal dentate, those of the upper stem 

 entire, or roughish on the margins; those of the branches 

 very numerous, small and bract-like. 



THE FLOWER HEADS: small, usually at the end of spread- 

 ing, slender branches and branchlets; the involucre 

 broadly bell-shaped; its bracts linear, obtuse or acutish, 

 appressed in about four series, green tipped. Rays fifteen 

 to thirty, about one inch long. 



THE FRUIT: achenes; pappus white. 



A bushy, but slenderly branched and delicately-flowered 

 Aster. The white or lilac-white rays very fine, the leaves 

 small and fine. 



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