II 



ON ASTERS, CHINA AND PERENNIAL 



IT comes as a shock to lovers of the China Aster, which 

 has been a familiar object in every garden that they have 

 known since childhood, to learn that it is an interloper 

 in the Aster genus. The triumphant botanist will grant 

 you that there is such a plant as an Aster, but he will 

 produce irrefutable evidence that the "China" is not 

 it. He will show you that the true Aster is a plant of 

 respectable antiquity, with something of a history of its 

 own, and, so to say, a family portrait gallery. And he 

 will prove that the annual varieties are mere modern 

 upstarts, practically without a history, and sadly lacking 

 in family weight. 



Those uncompromising botanists who object to 

 "popular" names for plants will follow up the advan- 

 tage that they have gained in showing that the " China 

 Aster" is not an Aster by proceeding to demonstrate 

 that the plant which really is an Aster is called generally 

 by some other name. " Perceive your folly," they will 

 thunder ; " the name Aster is not simple enough for the 

 plant which owns it, and so you must needs call it the 

 Michaelmas Daisy or the Starwort ; but Aster is quite 

 simple enough for another plant which has a name of 

 its own." Truly, the botanist has us on the hip, and we 

 can but hang our abashed heads in a becoming meekness. 



Shall we, however, mend our ways ? Shall we accept 



13 



