296 Blue to Purple Flowers 



quite small, some big and branching, and others again 

 straight and slender, but all tending to glorify the earth. 

 The Aster conspicuus is the largest and handsomest of all 

 its tribe, as its name suggests. It is very branching and has 

 large leaves that are sharply toothed; while the involucre, 

 or green cup which holds the flower, is curiously formed by 

 several series of tiny narrow-pointed bracts, which stand out 

 horizontally and give it a fringed appearance. The rays of 

 this Aster are a lovely bright purple, and the disk-flowers in 

 the centre are golden yellow. 



Aster Fremonti, or Fremont's Aster, is a very common 

 species. It also has purple rays, but rather brownish-yellow 

 disk-flowers. All the Asters consist of numerous, tiny, 

 tubular disk-flowers crowded together in a close. cluster and 

 surrounded by the rays, or ray-flowers, which are strap- 

 shaped, the whqle being held together in a green cup, or 

 involucre, of bracts. The leaves of Fremont's Aster are 

 quite smooth at the edges. 



The Asters are much-prized flowers, because they come 

 to us at a season when the whole world is walking in russet 

 garb along a penitential pathway that leads to winter's 

 prison. Only the Golden-rods and Asters are left to 

 linger through the soft gray days of late autumn, and what 

 could be more beautiful than these blossoms of purple 

 and gold, which, where the sun strikes light with his ruddy 

 lances, bejewel the burnished lustre of bare branches and 

 brown fallen leaves? 



Aster frondeus, or Leafy-bracted Aster, is a stout- 

 stemmed erect species, with violet, purple, or white rays. 

 It has many flowers growing on short stalks, which spring 

 out at intervals from the axils of the clasping smooth- 

 edged leaves, all the way up the long main stems; and the 



