ASTER. 
is very large and splendid, with many spreading rays of clear pale 
blue-violet, and the eye or disk is never yellow and always purple. 
A. Falconeri, a variety of this, even more newly come into cultiva- 
tion, is even more magnificent. It seems to form a rather simple 
and biennial-looking basal rosette; the foliage is toothed, and 
narrows quickly to a quite short but definite foot-stalk ; the toothed 
leaves continue freely up the foot-high stem, and. some three or four 
of them even envelop the cup of the flower-head, which is composed 
of green scales in two or three rows, and densely (not slightly) hairy 
at their edge. The flower is enormous, with countless very long and 
rather narrow rays of clear blue-violet, tending, many of the inner 
ones, to incurve a little at their tip, so that the erect bloom has the 
look of a huge expanded Sea-anemone; and the eye of the disk is 
bright golden yellow. This glorious thing has hardly yet come into 
general cultivation; it haunts the high mountains of Kashmir as 
far west as the Kamri Pass, and is well raised from seed. There 
seems no reason to suppose that it will not prove a sound perennial, 
though, being as yet so rare and precious, it will be treated to a 
specially good sunny place in light soil or moraine-mixture, watered 
from below. 
A. Fendleri, from the plains of Texas, attains some 6 or 12 inches, 
with firm and rather bristly leaves, and flowers three-quarters of an 
inch across. 
A. flaccidus is a much hairier and longer-haired version of A. 
alpinus from the Altai. 
A. fulcratus is found in the mountains of South Colorado. It isa 
beautiful half-prostrate species, emitting subterranean runners, and 
the leaves are perfectly hairless and untoothed, spoon-shaped or egg- 
shaped in outline, and very small upon the whitely downy purple 
stems, which usually carry only one large Aster nearly 2 inches across, 
of a rich rose or hot lilac ; but, if Jonger, they occasionally branch and 
produce more. 
A. Geyeri is like a dwarf form of the common A. laevis, only about 
a foot or a foot and a half high, with the smooth leaves all more or 
less stem-embracing, while the lower ones have a leaf-stalk, with a 
leafy prolongation on either side. The large and handsome flowers are 
in clusters, clear pale violet-blue. (Wyoming.) 
A. griseus has a weakly branching habit ; the plant is rough with 
short bristles till it has a glaucous-grey hoar-frosted look; and the 
big blossoms are of a pale violet which is said to be attractive. 
A. heterochaeta is found at great altitudes in Western Tibet and 
the Altai, from 16,000 to 18,000 feet. It is a glorified Alpinus, prac- 
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