Asters 



Eda G. Miller 

 Wilkesbarre, Pa. 



'Behold! the maize fields set their pennons free, 



In this rich golden ending of the year; 

 And asters bloom upon the sunny lea, 



Smiling as sweet as May, though leaves turn sere." 



— John Stuart Thompson. 



OITERIXG up by every roadside, in fields 

 and woodlands, may be seen the goldenrods 

 and dainty asters nodding and smiling at one 

 another from early August until late October. 

 And right royal emblems they make for the 

 fall of the year, a season of maturity and 

 harvest. Both groups are in their prime of 

 bloom from the middle of September to the 

 middle of October, and it is during that 

 time that a drive along a country road bordered with the soft white 

 and deep purple bloom of asters touched with splashes of sunny 

 goldenrod, presents a picture not easily surpassed. It is a sight 

 that makes one exclaim with Longfellow, — "With what a glory 

 comes and goes the year." 



Both groups of flowers belong to the Composite, the largest of 

 the plant families, and both have very diversified forms and habits. 

 Gray's manual lists seventy-seven species of widely different forms, 

 varying in size, color and also as to habitat. You find asters 

 bordering the woodland paths, along the roadsides, on the hillsides 

 and in the low swamp lands. You find them on the hig moun- 

 tains and if you visit the seashore you will find them growing 

 there. They differ widely as to shape of leaf. Some have long 

 slender leaves, others shorter, lance-shaped leaves that clasp the 

 stem, while still others have heart-shaped leaves on long, slender 

 petioles. In fact it is mainly by the shape of the leaf plus the 

 arrangement of the flower heads and their color that the different 

 species are distinguished. The number of ray flowers is quite 

 constant for a species, so that also helps in classification. 



As is the case of all the Compositae, what appears to be a single 

 flower is in reality a host of tiny florets packed closely together on a 

 flat receptacle or disk. In the aster, this flower head, as all the 

 florets together are called, is surrounded at the disk by an involucre 



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