218 Agricultural Experiment Station, Ithaca, N. Y. 



cause — into some novel form, still retainin<jf its accustomed color. 

 Ttie florist fixes the variation by breeding from the best and most 

 stable plants, and soon other colors appear, until he finally obtains 

 the entire range of color in the species. So it happens that there 

 are various vi^ell marked races or types, each of which has its full 

 and independent range of colors. The Comet type (see title page 

 and 3, Fig. 48), now the most deserving of the China asters, illus- 

 trates these statements admirably. The Comet form — the loose 

 open flower with the long strap-like rays — appeared upon the 

 market about 1886 or 1887 with a flower of a dull white overlaid 

 with pink. The pink tended to fade out after the flower opened, 

 leaving the color an unwashed white. The rose colored Comet next 

 appeared and the blue was introduced in 1890. The first clear 

 white was introduced in America in 1892, coming from Yilmorian 

 of Paris, and the China aster had reached its greatest artistic 

 perfection. 



The greatest desideratum yet to be attained in the China aster 

 is a pure yellow flower. There seems to be some general incom- 

 patability between the cyanic and the xanthic, or yellow, series 

 of colors. Yellow of a pure type has not yet been attained in the 

 annual phloxes and many other plants which affect the blues and 

 reds. Yet the chrysanthemum and various other plants combine 

 the two, and I confidently expect that the China aster will event- 

 ually do the same. We already have distinct approaches to the 

 yellow in the Lemon Gem, in which the flowers are suffused with 

 a lemon-yellow tint, and in a yellow quilled variety introduced this 

 year by Burpee as the Yellow Aster. This latter aster is one of 

 the crowned type, having a good yellow center and a border of 



whitish rays. 



In the immense range of color, form, habit and season in the 



China aster, the flower lover can find almost any ideal which an 



annual compositous flower can be expected to satisfy. In earliness, 



there has been a distinct advance in recent years in the introduction 



of the excellent French variety, Reine des Halles, which is known 



in this country as Queen of the Market (Fig. 39 ; 2, Fig. 48.) 



This variety blooms early in August at Ithaca, even when the seed 



is sown out of doors. One of the earliest forms of this type of 



aster is Burpee's Queen of Spring, which will bloom by the middle 



of July if started in a frame by the middle of April. This Reine 



des Holies type of aster was introduced in 1885 or 1886 by Vilmorin, 



