ASTER. 
tically stemless, the enormous violet flower seeming to sit tight 
on the smooth-edged, pointed foliage. The whole tuft is densely 
woolly. 
A. himalaicus is from 6 to 18 inches high, closely fluffy, and with 
leafy stems and blossoms of about an inch and a half across, with 
very narrow rays, and the scales of the very leafy flower-cup curving 
outward. 
A. integrifolius belongs to moist open places in the sub-alpine woods 
of the central Rockies. It is more or less fluffy-downy, with oval 
stem-embracing leaves, and clustered bluish-purple flowers about 
an inch and a half across on stems of some 8 to 16 inches. 
A. inulaefolius (Calimeris) has flowers as fine as Amellus in panicles 
on leafy stems. (Pine-woods of Lazic Pontus.) 
A. Kingii, from the high alps of the Rockies, is near A. alpinus 
and A. andinus. 
A. laetevirens grows about 2 feet high at the most, and has bright- 
green, willow-like foliage, and ample clusters of fine large rose-pink 
blossoms. (From the central Rockies.) 
A. Laka carries solitary large purple flowers on uprising stems 
of some 6 or 8 inches, leafy with broad leafage, oval heart-shaped, 
pointed and toothed, with the foot-stalks sheathing the stems. (Laka, 
10,000 to 11,000 feet.) 
A. lichiangensis is a bonus of the gods. It was never consciously 
collected, but in a seed-pan filled with germs of some Chinese Primula 
or other there appeared one day two seedlings, which ultimately de- 
veloped into the most exquisite high-alpine Aster ever seen. From 
a neat and tiny basal rosette of bright-green oval leaves there 
rises a little stem of about 3 inches, bearing erect a single flower of 
the most glorious imperial purple, of a most special elegance and 
charm. When this jewel comes out into the public hands it should 
have the very choicest of positions, in rich well-watered stony soil, 
with peat and sand admixed ; or else in the moraine-bed of chips and 
soil, where water flows perpetually beneath. 
A. Patiersonit has thick tongue-shaped leaves, clad in a certain 
amount of wool, from which rises up a stem branching at the top, 
and carrying large brilliant violet blooms about an inch and a half 
across. (From the high mountains of Colorado.) American botanists, 
never tired of having fun with their own native species, have had 
great times with Aster, Erigeron, Townsendia, and the other over- 
lapping, interfading families, redistributing them, and turning one 
into another as Harlequin does at the pantomime. Accordingly A. 
Pattersonit now often appears as Machaeranthera Pattersonii. For 
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