Addisonia 47 



(Plate 104) 



ASTER LAEVIS 

 Smooth Aster 



Native of the eastern and middle United States and Canada 

 Family CarduacKae; Thisti,^ Family 



Aster laevis I,. Sp. PI. 876. 1753. 



A firmly erect, little branched, perennial herb, commonly two to 

 three feet high. The entire plant is very smooth and glabrous and 

 more or less glaucous or glaucescent, appearing of a pale green 

 color. The thickish or somewhat fleshy leaves are oblong-lanceolate 

 varying to oblanceolate and, more rarely, broadly ovate, and are 

 entire or subserrate, and slightly roughened along the edges; the 

 apex is acute or somewhat obtuse; at full size they are commonly 

 three to five inches long. Those low on the stem are narrowed into 

 winged petioles; those higher up are sessile by a heart-shaped partly 

 clasping base, and, by gradual reduction along the flowering 

 branches, pass into the firm subulate bracts of the inflorescence. 

 The heads are one inch or more broad, and are terminal on firm 

 bracteolate branchlets along the branches of a close panicle. The 

 involucre is campanulate, its whitish-coriaceous imbricated bracts 

 having hardened acutish tips. The broadish rays, fifteen to thirty in 

 number, vary in color from deep blue to violet ; the rather prominent 

 disc is clear yellow, changing to purplish in age. The achenes are 

 glabrous, or nearly so, and are crowned with a tawny pappus. 



No one well knowing our asters in their native haunts will deny 

 to this one a place among those that uphold their aster lineage 

 with especial attributes of grace and beauty. It is a firmly up- 

 standing plant, and with something of distinction in its bearing 

 even before its flowers display their trim perfection of form and the 

 bright purity of their deep sky blue or paler violet. 



It is appropriate that this, of all asters, should bear the name 

 Aaster laevis — the smooth aster. Its smoothness is of a quality 

 that needs no veriflcation of the touch to make it instantly true to 

 the eye. An almost waxy firmness gives a sort of resistant pliancy 

 to the leaves which, with the herbage as a whole, are veiled with a 

 faint whitish bloom, like a plum or grape, that when pressed off 

 by a touch, reveals the bright light green of the shining surface 

 beneath. 



Ivike most asters this species has its divergent forms, some of 

 which have been given distinctive names. But no one of these 



