278 The 'Ottawa Naturalist. [March 



SOME NEW NORTHWESTERN COMPOSITE. 



By Edwd. L. Greene. 



Aster microlonchus. Stems about two feet high, very 

 erect, divested of all lower leaves at flowering time, parted from 

 below the middle into numerous leafy and flowering branches 

 forming a somewhat contracted and subpyramidal panicle ; the 

 reddened bark of stem and branches glabrous or obscurely pubes- 

 cent : leaves ot the panicle narrowly lance-linear, two inches long 

 more or less, entire, sessile by a broad more or less perceptibly 

 auricled base, thin, delicately scaberulous above, scabrous on the 

 margin, glabrous beneath, marked by a delicate midnerve only, 

 spreading or slightly deflexed : heads few and subracemose on the 

 branches, or solitary at the ends of them, nearly an inch broad 

 measuring the rays, the involucre short-campanulate, its bracts in 

 about three series, narrowly spatulatelanceolate, scaberulous, at 

 least marginally, and spreading or recurved at tip : rays many and 

 showy, apparently pale violet. 



The types of this strikingly handsome new Aster are Mr. 

 Macoun's numbers 26,3':4 and 26,385 from the Chilliwack Valley, 

 B.C., collected 18 Aug., igoi. Its immediate allies are A. longi- 

 folius, Lam., A. hesperi'us, Gray, and A. etisatus, Greene. From 

 all of these it diff^ers not only in aspect, but in its foliage which, 

 though sensibly roughened above, is yet of a texture so delicate 

 that all the lower and properly cauline ones fade and fall before 

 the time of flowering. It is perhaps more elegant and beautiful 

 than any of its near relations, and rather smaller in stature, 

 though growing in generous soil, and a climate abundantly moist 

 and not severe. 



Gnaphalium macounii. Apparently biennial, the stems 

 rigidly erect, about two feet high, rather loosely leafy and clothed 

 with a somewhat hirsute and viscid glandular-pubescence : leaves 

 narrowly oblanceolate, acute, 3 inches long, the upper decurrent, 

 all white-woolly beneath, light green and merely glandular-pubes- 

 cent above ; branches ot the subpyramidal close panicle and the 

 main stem for some distance below it densely white-woolly : invol- 

 ucres of middle size, their pearly scarious bracts all ovate, very 

 acute : flower and fruit not seen. 



