LIATRIS SCARIOSA. 

 BLUE BLAZING STAR. 



NATURAL ORDER, COMPOSIT.E. 



LlATRls SCARIOSA, Willcknow. — Stem stout, pubescent ; leaves mostly pubescent, the lowest 

 large, oblong or lanceolate obtuse, the upper linear, acute ; heads large, fifteen to forly- 

 flowered, roundish, sessile or pedicelled ; scales of the involucre spatulate or obovate, 

 rounded at the apex, usually with broad and colored margins ; the outer ones with spread- 

 ing tips. (Chapman's Flora of the Soitthern U)iited States. See also Gray's Flora of the 

 Northern United States, and Wood's Class-Book of Botany.') 



HE writer's first acquaintance with this beautiful wild 

 flower in a native condition was made in the broad and 

 beautiful lands of the Indian Territory, where, in the language of 

 Bryant, — 



"Free stray the lucid streams, and find 



No taint in these fresh leaves and shades ; 

 Free spring the flowers that scent the wind 

 Where never scythe has swept the glades." 



It is one of the most beaudful portions of the United States, 

 and made by nature still more beautiful by the profusion of 

 lovely flowers which everywhere abound. Here, as in other 

 prairie States, the plant is frequendy met with, and gives a par- 

 ticularly interesting character to the unique prairie scenery. But 

 it is by no means confined to these parts, for it is found in many 

 light and dry soils from Florida and Mississippi to New England 

 and Minnesota, extending, in a low and dwarfed condition, to the 

 base of the Rocky Mountains, where the writer has collected it 

 not much over a foot high, and with not more than half a dozen 

 of its large heads of showy flowers. In the Eastern States it 

 often makes stems three or four feet high, and we may count its 

 heads by scores. This is particularly the case when removed 



