Aster. COMPOSITE. 321 



less floccose-woolly, or minutely granulose-glandular but not pubescent. Aster (?) 

 Jilaginifolius, Hook. & Am. Bot. Beech. 146. Runs into various forms, of which 

 a common one with the floccose wool considerably persistent on the stems and nar- 

 row leaves, and the involucre slightly if at all either glandular or squarrose, is the 

 original type of the species ; the more marked variant forms may be arranged under 

 the following varieties. 



Var. virgata, Gray. Becoming glabrate and the involucre more rigid and 

 glandular : heads usually numerous and corymbed or panicled. C. virgata, Benth. 

 Bot. Sulph. 23. Aplopappus (?) (Pyrochceta) Hcenkei, DC. Prodr. v. 349. (Hsenke's 

 plant is from Monterey, California, not Mexico.) 



Var. tomentella, Gray. Very white-woolly, at least when young, and the 

 leaves mostly shorter and broader. C. tomentella, Torr. & Gray. Aster (?) tomen- 

 tellus, Hook. & Arn. 1. c. Diplopappus leucopht/llus, Lindl. in DC. Corethrogyne 

 obovata, Benth. 1. c. C. incana (?) var., Benth. PI. Hartw., is between the two vari- 

 eties, and unusually glandular. 



Open places, San Diego to Santa Cruz, and in the interior to Tejon and the Yosemite. Rays 

 violet, a quarter of an inch long. 



% * Bristles on the style-tips a dense and strong tuft : involucre hemisplierical. 



2. C. Calif ornica, DC. Stems erect or ascending, a foot or more high ; the 

 branches rather equably leafy throughout and terminated by single pretty large 

 heads : leaves linear-lanceolate or linear, chiefly entire : involucre broadly hemi- 

 spherical (nearly half an inch long) ; its scales mostly narrow and acute, in fewer 

 ranks, and the outer only moderately shorter, rather loose, all glandular-pubescent : 

 rarely some chaff on the receptacle among the outer flowers. C. incana, Nutt. 

 in Trans. Am. Phil. Soc. n. ser. vii. 290 (excl. syn. Lindl.) ; Torr. & Gray, Fl. ii. 

 98, the form with no chaff on the receptacle. 



Sandy soil, Monterey to San Diego : seldom collected. Rays light purple. 



3. C. spathulata, Gray. Stems decumbent, often a foot or so in length ; the 

 simple flowering branches 3 to 10 inches high, bearing single large heads : leaves 

 spatnlate or obovate, obtuse, the larger half an inch to an inch wide, serrate at apex, 

 those of the flowering branches gradually reduced to subulate or linear : the hemi- 

 spherical involucre glandular ; its scales moderately unequal, and with loose herba- 

 ceous tips : no chaff on the receptacle. Gray, Proc. Am. Acad. vii. 317. 



Mendocino and Humboldt Counties, near the coast, at Shelter Cove and Fort Bragg, Bolander, 

 Kellogg. Heads as large as in the last : rays violet-blue, half an inch long. The dense white 

 wool sometimes deciduous from the leaves, which then become glandular-scabrous. 



21. ASTER, Linn., Benth. & Hook. 



Head many-flowered, heterogamous ; the rays several or numerous in a single 

 series, fertile, very rarely neutral. Involucre imbricated ; the scales commonly with 

 herbaceous or foliaceous tips. Eeceptacle flat or convex, naked. Anthers tipped 

 with the usual lanceolate ovate appendage. Style-appendages varying from trian- 

 gular-lanceolate to subulate. Akenes more or less compressed, rarely slender, 4-5- 

 nerved. Pappus simple, of copious slender scabrous capillary bristles. Mostly 

 perennial herbs, with various alternate leaves, and solitary, corymbed, or panicled 

 heads ; flowering late. Rays white, purple, or blue : disk-flowers yellow, often 

 turning purple : pappus dull white or tawny. 



An immense genus, especially in North America, its headquarters, but remarkably inconspicu- 

 ous in California. For this flora at least it is best to receive it in the extended form which it 

 reassumes in Bentham and Hooker's Genera Plantarum. There are no species west of the Rocky 

 Mountains with cordate petioled leaves. 



