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BLUE AND PURPLt 



BLUE AND PURPLE ASTERS. 



Aster. Composite Family. 



Flozver-heads. — Composed of blue or purple ray-flowers, with a centre of 

 yellow disk-flowers. 



As about one hundred and twenty different species of aster 

 are native to the United States, and as fifty-four of these are 

 found in Northeastern America, all but a dozen being purple or 

 blue {i.e., with purple or blue ray-flowers), and as even botan- 

 ists find that it requires patient application to distinguish these 

 many species, only a brief description of the more conspicuous 

 and common ones is here attempted. 



The broad-leaved aster, A. 7?iacrophyllus, is best known, per- 

 haps, by the great colonies of large, rounded, somewhat heart- 

 shaped, long-stemmed leaves with which it carpets the woods 

 long before the flowers appear. Finally it sends up a stout, rigid 

 stalk two to three feet high, bearing smaller oblong leaves and 

 clusters of lavender or violet-colored flower-heads. 



Along the dry roadsides in early August we may look for the 

 bright blue-purple flowers of A. patens. This is a low-growing 

 species, with rough, narrowly oblong, clasping leaves, and widely 

 spreading branches, whose slender branchlets are usually termi- 

 nated by a solitary flower-head. 



Probably no member of the group is more striking than the 

 New England aster, A. Novce AnglicB (Plate CXLVL), whose 

 stout hairy stem (sometimes eight feet high), numerous lance- 

 shaped leaves, and large violet-purple or sometimes pinkish 

 flower-heads, are conspicuous in the swamps of late summer. 



A. puniceus is another tall swamp species, with long showy 

 pale lavender ray-flowers. 



One of the most commonly encountered asters is A. cordifo^ 

 lius (Plate CXLVII.), which is far from being the only heart- 

 leaved species, despite its title. Its many small, pale blue or 

 almost white flower-heads mass themselves abundantly along the 

 wood-borders and shaded roadsides. 



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