COMPOSITAE COMPOSITE FAMILY 
CYLINDRIC BLAZING STAR 
Liatris cylindracea Michx. 
The Blazing Stars or Button Snakeroots are among our most 
handsome late-summer and autumn wild flowers. They 
bloom mostly in August and September, and some of them are 
easily grown in gardens, where 
they make excellent ornamen- 
tal plants. 
The Cylindric Blazing Star 
grows in dry open places and is 
rather limited in its distribution, 
occurring from western Ontario 
to Minnesota and south to IIli- 
nois and Missouri. It is smooth 
or nearly so and only 1-2 feet 
high, sometimes branching near 
the top. The leaves are nar- 
rowly linear, 3-7 inches long and 
rather rigid. 
The heads are several or nu- 
merous, peduncled and with 
15-60 purple and tubular flowers. 
The receptacle is nearly flat and 
not chaffy. The pappus is com- 
posed of 15-40 very feathery 
bristles. The broadly oval bracts 
of the involucre overlap ap- 
pressed in § or 6 series and are 
abruptly acuminate at the apex. 
The akenes are slender, 10- 
ribbed and somewhat hairy. 
The Large Blazing Star, Lia- 
tris scariosa Willd., also grows in 
dry places. The stem is somewhat 
hairy, at least above, and 1-6 feet high. The leaves are narrowly 
lanceolate, the lowest sometimes 1 foot long and petioled, the upper 
much smaller. The heads are hemispherical and one-half to 1 inch 
broad. They are 15-45-flowered and borne on stout peduncles or are 
sometimes sessile. The bracts of the involucre are in 5 or 6 series and 
their tips and margins are often colored. The flowers are bluish 
purple or very rarely white and they bloom in August and September. 
343 
