370 Beautiful Plants growing wild 



JlscUpias quadrifblia Four-leaved Asclepias. A rare and 

 eleg-ant plant, well worth cultivating. Stem upright, about 

 a foot high, smooth, simple, or undivided. Leaves com- 

 monly about eight, in fours, stout stemmed, ovate (or egg- 

 formed, with the stem at the larger end), also acuminate, or 

 ending in a long, produced, sharp point. Umbels two, or 

 few, terminal, axillary (or growing from the shoulders of the 

 leaves), with small, white, sweet smelling flowers. — Rox- 

 bury, Brookline, Newton — June. 



JlscUpias tuberosa Butterfly Milk weed. Stem three feet 

 high, erect, hairy, with spreading branches. Leaves sessile, 

 or stemless, lance-formed, oblong. Flowers large, bright 

 orange. Umbels numerous, terminal on the ends of the 

 branches, corymbed or flat topped. Root large, fleshy, 

 branching, and often spindle-formed. This is the most 

 showy of all our native species of Asclepias. — Dry, sandy 

 soils. — Newton, and particularly Woburn and its vicinity. — 

 July, August. 



JlscUpias verticiUdta Whorled Milk weed. Stem un- 

 branched, about three feet high, and marked with pubescent 

 lines. Leaves smooth, rolled outwards, linear or grass- 

 formed, whorled, or surrounding the stem in horizontal rings. 

 Flowers small, greenish white. LTmbels several, small, 

 coming out from among the upper whorls of leaves. This is 

 a very neat species. — Dedham Turnpike, Roxbury. — Blos- 

 soms in June. 



Aster. 



The Aster, or Star flower, is exceedingly abundant in 

 the United States, and, with the genus Solidago, predom- 

 inates, in August and September, over all our other native 

 plants then in flower. The species and varieties of these 

 genera are also acknowledged to be very difllcult to define. 



Aster amygdalinus, or Jlster wnbelldtus Umbelled Aster. 

 Stem leafy, four or five feet high, branching into a large 

 compound, flat-topped corymb or arrow-like head. Leaves 

 large, numerous, lance-formed, acuminate, tapering at base, 

 rough on the edge, having an apricot-leaf appearance, but 

 darker, and more wrinkled. Flowers large, white. — Com- 

 mon in low grounds. — August, September. 



Jlster cydneus, or Aster amplexicaulis Blue flowered Aster. 

 This is one of the most beautiful, if not the " handsomest of 

 all our wild asters." Erect, wand-like, perfectly smooth, 

 panicled, or divided and subdivided. Leaves oblong, lance- 

 formed, tapering to an acute point, smooth and even, with a 

 rough edge, slightly serrate, or notched about the middle; 

 also clasping at their shoulders. The lower leaves are con- 

 tracted at their bases; and the branches of the panicle are 



