190 COMPOSITE. Aster. 



the wild ; and a dwarf form, very floriferous, with small leaves and small heads, is A. ccespi- 

 tosas of the gardens (as cited by Lindley under A. adulterlnus), probably the parent also of 

 A. Novi-Be/qii, var. miin'mus, oi the gardens, with rose-purple rays. — Saline marshes and 

 shores, Canada and New P^ngland to Georgia : evidently passes into the thinner-leaved form 

 taken as the type, wherever it recedes from the influence of brackish water. The old culti- 

 vated forms evidently much altered in the European gardens. 



Var. el6d.es. Slender, a foot or two high and simple, sometimes taller and with 

 am])ler panicle : leaves thickish, long and narrowly linear (2 to 5 inches long, 2 or 3 lines 

 M'ide), entire; those of flowering branches or open panicle small and bract-like : involucre of 

 rather well-imbricated narrow bract.s, with short and mostly spreading acutish tips. — A. 

 elodes, Torr. & Gray, Fl. ii. 136, chiefly. A. hvujifoUus, Gray, Man. 233, in part, not Lam. — 

 Swamps near the coast. New Jersey to Virginia. Would seem to be a most distinct species ; 

 but passes bv gradations into forms of the type of tlie species, with narrow-lanceolate den- 

 ticulate leaves of thinner texture ; and the broad-leaved var. of Torr. & Gray, 1. c-, into the 

 preceding variety. 



Var. thyrsiflorus. Very leafy, smooth : cauliue leaves narrowly lanceolate or 

 nearly linear (2 to 4 inches long, 2 to 4 lines wide below the middle), attenuate-acuminate, 

 commonly serrulate, of rather firm texture : heads numerous in a narrow thyrsoid panicle, 

 or somewhat racemosely paniculate on elongated branches, rather large : involucre of the 

 narrow bracts with attenuate and spreading or squarrose-recurving tips, as in the typical form. 

 — A. thyrsiflorus, Iloffm. Phyt. Blatt. i. 83, t. I), f. 1 (yet figure and description answer 

 rather to a broader-leaved form, either of the type or of the var. Icevigatus) ; Poir. Suppl. 

 i. 502; Nees, Ast. 6.5; DC. Prodr. v. 235, with var. sqnarrosus, Lindl. in DC. (A. eminens, 

 Lindl. Bot. Reg. t. 1614, with abnormally foliose involucre.) A. spectahi/is, Willd. Spec. 

 iii. 2048, as to descr. (not char.) & herb., not Ait. — Said to come from Virginia : cultivated 

 plants not matched by indigenous specimens. 



= = Pacific or Rocky Mountain species. 



a. Involucre of the middle-sized or small heads conspicuously and regularly pluriserially imbri- 

 cated; outer bracts successively shorter; all loosely erect or little spreading, and with obtuse or 

 obtusish mostly short and broadish herbaceous tips (occasionally in early or less developed 

 heads some outer bracts foliaceous): leaves entire, or lower sometimes slightly serrate. 

 1. Heads mosth' half-inch high, hemispherical, loosely paniculate: leaves comparatively large, 

 none broadened at the insertion. 

 A. Cliamissonis, Gray. Eather tall (2 to 4 feet high), with loosely spreading branches 

 and branchlets, pubescent with spreading hairs or glabrate : leaves bright green, broadly 

 lanceolate (larger cauline 3 to 6 inches long and an inch or less broad, those of flowering 

 branchlets small) : bracts of the broad involucre all but inner with obtuse and oval or appar- 

 ently spatulate obtuse green tips (coarser and looser than in the next) : rays bright violet, 

 4 to 6 lines long. — Torr. in Wilkes Exped. xvii. 341 ; Bot. Calif, i. 324. A. radula, Less. 

 in Linn. vi. 125, flde Nees. A. Chiiensis, Nees, Ast. 133 ; Torr. & Gray, Fl. ii. 112, but not 

 at all Chilian. A. spectahilis, Hook. & Am. Bot. Beech. 146, not Ait. A. Neesii, Schultz 

 Bip. in Flora, 1856, 354, name merely suggested. — Moist thickets and along streams, Cali- 

 fornia toward the coast, for nearly the whole length of the State, apparently reaching 

 Oregon; flr.st coll. by llamke and C'hamisso. 



2. Heads smaller, 3 to 5 lines high. 

 A - Menziesii, Lindl. A foot or two high, strict, from cinereous-pubescent throughout 

 to almost glabrous, bearing mostly numerous or tliyrsoidly I'acemose-paniculate and rather 

 small heads on rigid erect branchlets or peduncles : leaves lanceolate or the lower spatulate- 

 oblong (2 or 3 inches long), on the branches small and linear or reduced to linear-subulate, 

 so that the well-developed panicle is comparatively naked : involucre .seldom over 3 lines 

 high, short-turbinate, of linear slightly spatulate bracts in several rather closely imbricated 

 ranks, nearly all obtuse : rays violet or purple, 3 lines long. — Hook. Fl. ii. 12, & DC. Prodr. 

 V. 243; Torr. & Gray, Fl. ii. 113 (de.scribed from the original, starved and arid, cinereous- 

 canescent specimens, collected hy Menzies in California, not "Oregon"); Torr. in Wilkes 

 Exped. xvii. t. 8 (a similar form, collected on the Sacramento) ; Gray, Bot. Calif, i. 324. 

 A. Durandii, Nutt. ex Durand in Pacif. R. Rep. v. 8. Has been sometimes taken for ^1. 

 falcahis. — Dry or moist ground, throughout California to W. Nevada. There are connect- 

 ing forms between this and the preceding, and others verging to the following. 



