ASTER SPECIES. 
A. macrophyllus, a very coarse and very variable great weed. 
A. major, » big purple-flowered species from moist woods in the 
Selkirks, attaining 6 feet, with coarsely toothed stem-embracing leaves. 
A. meritus forms a wide mat and has inferior scanty-rayed stars. 
A. modestus has an undivided stem, notably narrow foliage, and a 
few large flowers of rich dark violet. It prefers rich soils in nature. 
A. multiflorus, a very branching bush-Aster, roughish, with small 
white flowers. ; 
A. Nelsonii, a slender grower from moist rocks, with feeble 
starved florets. 
A. nemoralis, from bogs and cool places far up the Hudson and in 
Newioundland, is a better species, with an even better form called 
A. n. Blakei. It is about 2 feet high, with stiff untoothed leaves 
curling over at the edge ; the flowers are large and lilac, several to the 
head. 
A. Novae-Angliae, « mater pulchra filiarum pulcherrimarum,” is in 
nature rare, especially affecting damp calcareous places in East 
Quebec. This and its seedlings are never so tall as the next. 
A. Novi-Belgii, on the contrary, is very common all along the 
Atlantic border of the States, where it takes many forms. It may 
be separated easily from the last by its much greater stature, with 
leaves more or less embracing the stem. They are more or less 
toothed, and thinnish in texture. It attains nearly 4 feet at home, 
and has flowers of bright violet, while in the garden it doubles its 
height, and diverges into almost every gorgeous colour of the rain- 
bow—the last and richest glory of the herbaceous border. 
A. paniculatus, a leafy, very variable and branching 6-footer, 
with large flowers of a rather lifeless pale purple. 
A. patens is a bigger form of A. gracilis, some 2 or 3 feet high, 
with oblong petioled leaves and panicles of lax-rayed violet stars of 
bright violet. 
A. polyphyllus is quite close to A. ericoeides, but larger in the 
blossom. 
A. Porteri is a most beautiful plant abundant in Colorado, with 
2- or 3-foot stems, and ample graceful heads, showery and sprayed, 
of delicate and well-built white flowers. Though in reality hardy, 
A. Porteri should have well-drained light dryish soil, lest it depart 
from heavier ground in winter, as its habit sometimes is. 
A. prenanthoeides has leaves embracing the stem and overlapping 
it ; the height is 2 or 3 feet, and the blossoms purply. Streams and 
rich woods. 
A. ptarmicoeides makes a really dainty and delightful little clump, 
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