ACCORDING TO SEASON 



where it was raised as a valuable weed. Now it 

 dyes yellow the hollows of the abandoned home- 

 stead and strays lawlessly to the borders of the 

 highway. 



The tribe of asters is even larger than that of 

 golden-rods, numbering some two hundred spe- 

 Asters cies. Italy, Switzerland, and Great Britain each 

 yield but one native variety, I believe, although 

 others are largely cultivated, the Christmas and 

 Michaelmas daisies of English gardens being 

 American asters. One species, Aster glacialis of 

 the botanies, is found growing 12,000 feet above 

 the sea. The blue and purple varieties, those hav- 

 ing blue and purple ray-flowers, that is, are much 

 commoner than those with white ray-flowers. 

 Over fifty of the former are found in the North- 

 eastern States to about a dozen of the latter. 



Of the white species, the earliest to blossom is 

 the corymbed aster, which can be identified by its 

 slender, somewhat zigzag stems, its thin, heart- 

 ivbite shaped leaves, and its loosely clustered flower- 

 speaes heads. It grows plentifully in the open woods, 

 especially somewhat northward. In swamps and 

 moist thickets we find the umbelled aster, with its 

 long, tapering leaves, and flat clusters, which it 

 lifts at times to a height of seven feet. A beau- 

 tiful variety which is abundant along the coast is 

 the many-flowered aster. This is a bushy, spread- 



156 



