AMERICAN WILD FLOWERS • 461 



purple ray flowers. The calico aster and the mountain aster are 

 two eastern species with white ray flowers. The lavender desert 

 aster is a delicate species which has made itself at home on the 

 southwestern deserts. 



GoLDENRODS together with the asters create the royal purple 

 and gold which characterize the eastern fields in autumn. This 

 widespread genus, which includes almost a hundred American 

 species, is especially abundant in the eastern states. The entirely 

 yellow flower heads are smaller than those of the asters, and are 

 frequently borne in plume-like clusters. The most showy mem- 

 ber of the genus is the Canada goldenrod of our eastern and cen- 

 tral states. An exception to the typical yellow color is found in the 

 siLVERROD which develops flower heads with white ray flowers 

 and whitish bracts; this species grows in dry soil from New Eng- 

 land to Georgia and Minnesota. 



Sunflowers (fig. 281) are coarse-stemmed and tall plants 

 with showy flower heads made up of conspicuous yellow ray 

 flowers and purplish brown disc flowers. Of some hundred Amer- 

 ican species, almost half occur in the southern and eastern states. 

 The common sunflower, which under cultivation reaches a 

 height of ten feet or more and develops a flower head a foot in 

 diameter, belongs to the central states. The eastern woodland 

 sunflower is a more slender plant of moderate height with smaller 

 flower heads. Black-eyed Susan or coneflower grows in the 

 prairies but has spread also throughout the eastern states; the 

 rough hairy stems bear flower heads made up of orange colored 

 ray flowers and a central cone of purplish brown disc flowers. 

 Desert gold, a low growing and gregarious western member 

 of the family, displays heads of bright yellow ray and disc flowers; 

 the abundance of these small Composites colors acres of sandy 

 fields from the Mexican border to Oregon. Firewheel or Gail- 

 LARDiA, inhabits our central states; its solitary heads are made 

 up of showy yellow and red ray flowers surrounding a mass of 

 purple disc flowers. 



Yarrow and the common white daisy are two European plants 

 which have become naturalized throughout the United States. 

 Yarrow has fern-like leaves and flat topped clusters of small 

 flower heads, each made up of a few white ray flowers and pale 



