for the sometimes ciliolate margins, more or less strongly imbricate, with elongate 

 usually appressed green tips; rays 20 to 40, white or occasionally lavender or 

 blue, 4.5-12 mm. long; lobes of the disk corollas comprising 30 to 45 per cent of 

 the limb; achenes strigose, few-nerved. 



Moist low places, wet meadows, prairie swales, ditches, edge of streams and 

 sloughs, alluvial soil in thickets in Okia. {Waterfall), July-Sept.; N.S. to Va., 

 w. to N.D. and Okla. 



17. Aster praealtus Poir. 



Rhizomatous perennial with ascending stems and branches; stem leaves sessile, 

 generally lance-linear or very narrowly elliptic, the lower ones 4-10 (-15) cm. 

 long and about 1 cm. broad, those higher up gradually smaller and smaller; leaves 

 of the numerous short rarely somewhat secund head-bearing branchlets very 

 small and subulate or linear-subulate; involucres usually hemispheric, about 6 mm. 

 high, with a few rows of weakly graduated phyllaries, the outer shorter of which 

 are about half as long as the inner longest ones; rays several mm. long, usually 

 bluish white or less commonly pure-white; mature disk corollas 4.5-6 mm. long, 

 with a tube 1.5-2.5 mm. long, a throat 1.5-3 mm. long and lobes 0.5-1.3 mm. 

 long. 



In marshes, seepage in wet meadows, prairie swales, and on usually moist banks 

 and in ditches, loamy soil, in Okla. (Waterfall), n.-cen. Tex. and lower Plains 

 Country, less frequent or rarely to e. and s.e. Tex., n. part of Rio Grande Plains 

 and e. part of Edwards Plateau, (Sept.-) Oct.-Nov., less commonly other seasons; 

 Que. and Ont. s. to Md., W.Va., and Ky., s.w. to la., Mo., Okla., Tex. and 

 Chih. (?). 



18. Aster dumosus L. 



Perennial from slender rhizomes; branches (at least the upper ones) usually 

 ascending and much-branched; leaves firm-membranous, those of midstem 

 linear, 10-25 (-34) mm. long and 1-2 mm. broad, usually falling before the end 

 of Sept. and leaving in Oct. only the numerous nearly uniform minute subulate 

 appressed leaves of the upper branches and of the head-bearing branchlets; head- 

 bearing branchlets not markedly secund; involucres 5-7 mm. high; rays a few 

 mm. long, usually bluish-white but variable; mature disk corolla with a tube 

 1.4-2.3 mm. long plus a narrowly funnel-form throat 1.4-2.3 mm. long, plus usually 

 erect lobes 0.4-1 mm. long, the proportions quite variable. Incl. var. subulaefolius 

 T. & G. and var. coridifolius (Michx.) T. & G. 



In wet meadows and swampy open ground, and in loamy prairies, in Okla. 

 (McCurtain Co.) and s.e. Tex., rare inland in e. Tex., late Sept.-Nov.; s.e. U.S. 

 n. to Me.; other varieties inland as far as Ont., Mich and 111. 



Some few specimens combine characters of this species and of A. laterifiorus. 



19. Aster scabricaulis Shinners. 



Perennial with rhizomes; stems ascending, weak, 14-18 dm. long, with branches 

 at middle or below to 35 cm. long, scabrous-pubescent throughout, with about 25 

 to 35 nodes, the middle and upper internodes 1.5-4.5 cm. long; stem leaves 

 withering early, oblong-lanceolate, acute, entire or very shallowly toothed, sessile 

 and clasping (i.e., basally slightly auriculate), scabrous-pubescent on both surfaces 

 or nearly glabrous beneath, about 7 cm. long and 2 cm. broad; leaves of branches 

 similar but much smaller, rather numerous and uniform; heads rather numerous 

 and crowded, the ultimate head-bearing branchlets 3-12 mm. long; involucres 

 7-8 mm. high; phyllaries in about 5 to 7 rows, subequal, loosely spreading or 

 squarrose. 



Rare in boggy ground, e. Tex. (Tyler and Van Zandt cos.), Oct.; endemic. 



1625 



