ASTER. 
their edge. The stems are only about 4 inches high, and the flowers 
glorious as in A. alpinus. 
A. scopulorum has now, by American botany, been driven out of 
the family, and ordered for the time being to set up house for itself 
as Ionactis alpina. It forms a single clump of short, stiff, very 
narrow foliage all ashy-grey with soft hairs. The splendid light- 
violet blooms, some inch and a half wide, are carried lonely on stems 
half a foot tall at the most. (High Alps of Wyoming, &c.) 
A, sibiricus is in the group of A. Amellus, with leaves rounded and 
more or less stem-embracing, toothed, saw-edged or entire. (Altai.) 
A. silenifolius, from Eastern Siberia, is yet another beautiful A. 
alpinus. The leaves are narrow oblong, rather pointed, and clothed 
in a certain amount of spreading hair; while the suns of violet and 
gold are borne lonely on short stems, the rays being twice as long as 
the disk is broad. 
A. Stracheyi is a quite small and charming little rambling species, 
with runners. The basal leaves are oval spoon-shaped, with a few 
coarse teeth here and there, softly downy. There are one or two small 
leaves on the dwarf scapes, each of which carries a flower-head about 
three-quarters of an inch across, the rays themselves being half an 
inch. (From the alps of Kumaon, at about 12,000 feet.) 
A. subcoeruleus is the beautiful impostor which in all gardens has 
borne the name of A. diplostephioeides—from which at the outset it 
may be always and absolutely known by the eye of the blossom, which 
is yellow (whereas in A. diplostephioeides it is purple). This is a most 
precious species, forming wide mats of soft oval green foliage, from 
which in June rise a profusion of tall almost naked stems, perhaps 
some 15 inches high, each of which carries a magnificent Aster-alpinus 
flower with a golden eye. This beauty is only known in cultivation, 
its origin being unknown, but suspected to lie somewhere away in 
the mountains of Hazara, about the Western borders of Kashmir. 
The variety A. s. Leichtlinit is one of special size and vigour and 
brilliant splendour—though the type itself hardly admits of being 
improved in any of these respects. 
A. tataricus is not a specially interesting Amelloid species, with 
erect hispid stems, freely branching, with elongated sprays. 
A. tiheticus follows the excellent fashion of A. alpinus in only pro- 
ducing one flower to a stem. In this species the stems are specially 
numerous, standing erect in a dense little forest not exceeding a foot 
at the outside, and more usually about 6inches. The abundant flowers 
are conspicuous, too, in the abundance of their bright-blue rays, about 
a couple of inches across. There are but few leaves on the stems, 
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