40 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



parts of our State, and have been to me the source of considerable per- 

 plexity. These forms are recognized in the work mentioned, which says 

 that " forms with smaller heads and thinner leaves appear to pass into 

 A. cotymbosus,^' and that " a robust form with large heads, more glandular 

 involucre and peduncles, upper leaves ovate and sessile, lower and 

 petioled cauline leaves all rounded at the base, and most of the radical 

 ones little cordate * * » comes near the next following." From 

 this it appears that the species, as understood by Professor Gray, is not 

 very sharply distinguished from A. corymbosns on one hand and from 

 A. Herveyi on the other. Moreover, it includes forms having rays either 

 " white or tinged with bluish-purple." A: corymbosus has white rays, 

 "six to nine " in number; A. Herveyi has lilac or violet rays, " fifteen to 

 twenty-four'' ii? number, and A. fnacrophyllus, according to the descrip- 

 tion, has ten to fifteen rays. In the number and color of the rays, then, 

 as well as in other characters, it stands between the two species men- 

 tioned. So far as my observation goes concerning these two forms of 

 A. macrophyllus, the one having white rays has the prevailing number of 

 the rays less than in the one having colored rays. The number is often 

 less than ten. In this forni also the glands of the involucral scales are 

 fewer, minute, and inconspicuous aiid almost or entirely wanting on the 

 flowering branchlets and peduncles. In the other form they are numerous 

 and conspicuous on the involucral scale-, and are also abundant and 

 long stalked on the hairy peduncles ard branchlets. The constancy with 

 which these conspicuous glands and the colored rays accompany each 

 other affords a very definite line of separation between the two forms 

 included in A. 7nacrophyUus, and in my opinion the classification would 

 be much improved and the natural indications more closely followed if 

 this clear line of limitation should receive recognition. It is this colored- 

 rayed, glandular-peduncled form that was described m the Forty-sixth 

 Report, under the name Aster Herveyi var. interviedia. More recent 

 observations lead me to believe that too much weight was given to the 

 reddish-tawny character of the pappus, which is ascribed to A. macro- 

 phyllus in the State Flora. The pappus is not always thus colored in 

 either of these two forms. I am now of the opinion that it would be 

 better to make the colored-rayed form either a distinct species or at least 

 a variety of A. macrophyllus. And perhaps in the latter case it would be 

 better to give only varietal value to A. Herveyi also. It appears that 

 there is a gradual transition from A. corymbosus, through A . macrophyllus 

 to A. Hetveyi, and that the most definite line of division is (so to speak) 

 through the middle of ^. macrophyllus. I suspect that if Linnaeus, when 



