Aster. COMPOSITiE. 185 



in Proc. Am. Acad. xvi. 99. — Rocky islands and shores, northern part of Lake Champlain, 

 Pr ingle, E. Bruinard. 



H— -t— -H- Involucre of the numerous small and racemosely disposed heads with squarrose or at 

 least spreadiny herbaceous tips to the well-imbricated unequal bracts, these tips obtuse or merely 

 mucronate-apiculate : cauline leaves small, all linear and entire, not at all or scarcely narrowed 

 at the abrupt closely sessile or parily clasping base: akenes canescent-hirsute: herbage with 

 somewhat cinereous or hirtellous pubescence. — Multijloii. 



•H- Raj's amethystine-violet or purple : leaves not rigid. 

 A. ameth^stinus, Nutt. Cinereously puberulent or the stems hirsutulous, 2 to .5 feet 

 high, panicnliitely mnch branched : heads 3 lines liigh : tips of involncral bracts merely 

 spreading, acntish, not ciliate : rays rather numerous, 3 lines long. — Trans. Am. Phil. Soc. 

 (n. ser.) vii. 294; Torr. & Gray, Fl. ii. 144; Gray, Man. ed. 5, 234. — Kather low grounds, 

 E. Massachusetts to Illinois and Iowa. This has been cult, in European gardens under the 

 names of A. pilosus and Bostoniensts. It has much the habit of A. obluiujifolius, but is desti- 

 tute of viscidity and aroma. 



-H- ++ Rays white, rarely bluish or pur])le-tiiiged. 



A. multiflorus, Ait. Low (a foot or two high), bushy-branched, cinereous or green : leaves 

 rigid, scabrous- or hispidulous-ciliate ; uppermost of the hranchlets passing into involucral 

 bracts ; these mostly with olituse tips : heads in the ordinary forms little over 2 (at most 3) 

 lines long, and with only 10 to 15 or 20 rays. — Kew. iii. 203 ; Willd. Spec. iii. 2027 ; Torr. & 

 Gray, Fl. ii. 124, with var. stricticaidis, a slender strict form of the North. A. ericoides, dmiwsns, 

 Dill. Elth. t. 36. A. ericoides, L. spec, as to syn. Dill. ; Michx. Fl. ii. 113; Schk. Haudb. 

 t. 245, & (var. midtljioras) Pers. Syn. ii. 443. A. ciliatus, Muhl. in Willd. Spec. iii. 2027. 

 A. scoparius, DC. Prodr. v. 242, a rather strict slender-leaved Texan form. A. hehecladtis, 

 DC 1. c, a ver}^ small-leaved hirtellous Texano-Arizonian form. — Dry or sterile ground, 

 Canada to Georgia and Texas, common throughout Atlantic States, southwest to Arizona, 

 northwest to Saslvatchewan and Brit. Columbia. (Mex.) The most wide-spread species. 



A . commutatus. A foot or so high, with divergent branches ; heads more scattered and 

 twice or even thrice the size of those of A. multijlorus (3 or 4 lines high and broad) : rays 

 20 to 30 : otherwise nearly as the preceding. — A. multiflorus, var. comriKdatus, Torr. & Gray, 

 1. c , excl. syn. A. biennis, Torr. Ann. Lye. N. Y., at least mainly. A. ramidosus, var. incuno- 

 pilosus, Lindl. in DC. Prodr. 1. c. & Hook. Fl. ii. 12. — Plains and river-banks, Dakota and 

 Saskatchewan, to Utah and E. Oregon. Seems to pass into the preceding on one hand, and 

 into A. adscendens on the other. 



A. falcatus, Lixdl. Much like a strict and simple-stemmed A. mnltiflnrus, perhaps a high 

 northern form of it : leaves all narrowly linear, glabrate or sparingly and minutely (and the 

 stem more obviously) pubescent with soft somewhat appressed hairs; involucre broader, 

 glabrous ; its bracts tliinner and looser ; outer lierbaceous to near the base and as long as the 

 attenuate innermost. — Torr. & Gray, Fl. ii. 126. A. falcatus & A. ramulosus (as to the type), 

 Lindl. in DC. Prodr. v. 241, 243, & Hook. Fl. ii. 12. — Subarctic America, from Cumberland 

 House to Fort Franklin, near the Arctic Circle and Arctic coast, Richardson. 



^— H— H— -I— Involucre of the small (2 or 3 hues high) and numerous heads nearly of the 

 Heterophylli, phiri^erial; the bracts not coriaceous, regularly and closely imbricated (outer suc- 

 cessively shorter), smooth and glabrous, mostly whitish below and with delinite short green 

 tips, these not spreading: stems usually slender and not very tall; the branches divergent or di- 

 varicate (except m A. racemosus), and racemosely branched or racemosely capnuliferous: leaves 

 from lanceolate to subulate, not cinereous nor more than minutely scabrous, commonly spread- 

 ing: all Atlantic i^\)ecies. — Direrf/entes. 

 ++ Heads more scattered and singly terminating the racemose or compound-paniculate minutely 

 foliose slender branches. 

 A. dumosUS, L. Mostly quite glabrous and smooth, 1 to 3 feet high : leaves all entire and 

 obtu.se, commonly retlexed or widely spreading; the cauline linear (I to 3 inches long and as 

 many lines wide), of rather firm texture ; those of branches and hranchlets gradually smaller 

 and shorter ; ultimate ones reduced to minute bracts : involucre canipanulate or sliort-turbi- 

 nate (2 or 3 lines long), well imbricated and with very definite and broadish oval or oldong 

 green tips to the obtuse or sometimes barely acntish bracts : rays from violet to nearly 

 white, 2 lines long. — Spec. ii. 873 (with syn. mainly) ; Ait. Kew. iii. 202 ; Torr. & Gray, Fl. 



