226 COMPOSITE FAMILY 



GROUP II. Heads with ray-flowers surrounding the disk. 



The most beautiful of our asters is Aster caroUnianus, 

 whose pink or light purple flowering-heads ornament 

 shrubby borders of lakes and streams, where the long 

 stems of this aster push up through other growth, lie along 

 the branches of trees and shrubs, and bloom during autumn 

 and winter. Two remarkable asters are found in pine- 

 lands, A. adnatus, whose tiny upright leaves are adnate 

 to the stem for a part of their length, and A. squatrosus, 

 whose tiny leaves are reflexed. Both have attractive violet 

 or blue rays. A. concolor resembles a blazing star in its 

 wandlike growth, as the heads are borne more closely along 

 the stem than is usual in the asters. 



A dwarf sunflower, Heliantlius dehilis, is common on 

 the coast, where it spreads a dark green carpet of many 

 rough leaves as a background for its golden-rayed, brown- 

 centered heads. And on the coast grows the shrubby sea 

 ox-eye, Borrichia, with thick grayish leaves, and yellow 

 flowering-heads. A slender sunflower, HeliantheUa, which 

 blooms all summer in pinelands, has rough, upright sterna 

 topped by large yellow heads. 



A showy gaillardia from western states, and a mari- 

 gold with strong-scented foliage, from tropical America, 

 are becoming naturalized in some localities. 



Fleabanes, Erigeron, common in damp places in winter 

 and spring, show a rosette of basal leaves, and a branched 

 inflorescence of small aster-like heads with yellow centers 

 and white or purple rays. 



Spring marshes are bright with the solitary, long-stalked 

 heads of a sneezeweed, Helenmm, whose leaves are in a 

 basal rosette. A weed of this genus is of branched growth, 

 with many leaves and many yellow heads. 



Little sunflower-like heads of Berlandiera, called "but- 

 tercups'^ in Florida, bloom from midwinter to autumn 

 above clustered basal leaves. When the sun goes down, 



