WHITE PRAIRIE ASTER 



Aster com mutatis T. and G. 



THISTI.E FAMILY 



In the floral pageantry of early summer the Asters take no 

 part, but from midsummer onward they demand increasing 

 notice until in the climax of splendor with which the season 

 closes they occupy the premier place. Other handsome flowers 

 in great number and variety join in the display, but many of 

 them furnish only here and there outstanding points of color, 

 valuable additions to the general effect, but still merely inci- 

 dental. Not so the Asters ! Vast plains, unending miles of road- 

 way, and innumerable swamps, thickets, and forest glades are 

 beautified by their mj-riad blossoms. 



Asters respond kindly to human care, and in England these 

 Michaelmas daisies, as they are called, are highly esteemed and 

 generally cultivated. In Canada little attention of this kind 

 has yet been paid to them. But, although neglected by human 

 gardeners, Nature here uses them lavishly, and many a lonely 

 settler's simple home is transformed and glorified by the blue 

 and white of asters and the yellow of goldenrods. 



This White Prairie Aster is common in dry and sandy soil 

 from Manitoba to British Columbia. Its stem, somewhat 

 branched, grows one or two feet high, its leaves are small and 

 narrow, both stem and leaves are hairy, but one notices little 

 such details, as attention is centred upon the splendid panicle 

 of white flowers, a particularly fine specimen of which is shown 

 on the opposite page. 



A closely allied species, the White Wreath Aster (A. wiilti- 

 florus) with smaller flower-heads and a more branched stem, 

 grows in similar soil over an even wider territory. 



The Smooth-leaved Aster (A. laevis) with rather compact 

 panicles of sky-blue flowers is one of the most abundant and 

 elegant forms in open woods, on the edge of thickets, ami along 

 fence rows. 



In swamps we frequently find a stout, rough-hairy, purple- 

 stemmed Aster (A. puniceus) bearing aloft above the tallest 

 sedges a great pyramid of large lilac-blue flowers. 



Scattered along hilly roads and on openly wooded hillsides is 

 the Showy Western Aster '(A. conspicuus) whose broad leaves 

 and flat-topped clusters of large violet or pink-purple flowers 

 quite justify its name. 



Many other kinds merit mention. The ambitious young 

 student may find some difficulty in the exact determination 

 of species, but both he and the amateur lover of flowers will 

 find interest and pleasure in their great variety and beauty. 



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