COMPOSITAE COMPOSITE FAMILY 
DRUMMOND'S ASTER 
Aster Drummondii Lindl. 
This is one of the blue Asters that grow in dry soil in wood- 
land borders and on prairies from Ohio and Kentucky to Minne- 
sota and Texas. The stem is usually stout, branched, 2-5 feet high 
and densely covered with fine 
whitish hairs. The leaves are 
mostly thin and clothed with 
hairs like the stem, especially 
below. The lowest leaves are heart 
shaped, sharply 
toothed and with 
slender naked pe- 
tioles; higher ones 
have margined or 
winged petioles, 
and leaves on the 
branches are sessile and entire. 
The rather numerous heads 
bloom from late August to Oc- 
tober on racemose branches. The 
linear and acute or acuminate 
bracts of the top-shaped involucre 
are somewhat hairy and their 
green tips are not spreading. There are 8-15 blue ray flowers, and 
the pappus is whitish. 
_ The Arrow-leaved Aster, Aster sagittifolius Wedemeyer, is very 
similar to Drummond’s Aster, the principal distinction being that 
stem and leaves are essentially smooth. 
The Heart-leaved Aster, Aster cordifolius L., usually grows in 
woods or thickets. The stem, 1-5 feet high, is smooth or nearly so 
and much branched and bushy. The sharply toothed leaves are long 
pointed, thin and rough and more or less covered with scattered hairs 
above and on the veins beneath. The lower ones are broadly heart 
shaped, slender petioled and 2-5 inches long; the upper are short peti- 
oled or sessile and smaller. The heads are usually very numerous 
and small but handsome. The bracts of the involucre are green tip- 
ped but not spreading. The 10-20 ray flowers are violet, blue or 
sometimes nearly white, and the pappus is whitish. This species 
occurs from New Brunswick to Minnesota, south to Georgia and 
Missouri, and blooms from September to December. 
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