BLUE AND PURPLE WILD FLOWERS 



patience and experience to distinguish a majority of the 

 two hundred and fifty species existing in North America. 

 The word Aster is derived from the Greek, meaning 

 star, and it alludes to their pretty radiating flower 

 heads. Asters are perennial, mostly branching, and 

 late-flowering herbs with alternating leaves. They 

 are rarely annual, and grow from six inches to eight 

 feet in height, and possess Daisy-like flowers vary- 

 ing in size from one-eighth of an inch to two inches 

 broad. The floral heads are seldom solitary, and are 

 usually arranged in terminal groups or clusters of both 

 tubular and radiate flowers. The white, pink, purple, 

 blue or violet ray flowers are pistillate. The tubular 

 disc flowers are perfect, with five-lobed corollas, usually 

 yellow and changing to red, brown or purple. The 

 fading flower usually develops tiny whiskered seeds, 

 that sail hither and thither with the wind, much after 

 the fashion of those of the Dandelion. The coloured 

 rayed species greatly outnumber the white-rayed, but 

 the latter are so very prolific and abundant that they 

 do not appear in the minority. Some species have 

 very long recurving ray flowers, and the latter are 

 found in every degree of length down to one species, 

 A. augustus, which has the corolla of its ray flowers 

 reduced to a mere tube. 



LARGE-LEAVED ASTER 



Aster macrophyllus. Thistle Family. 



This rather coarse and extremely variable species 

 has a stout, simple, purple-stained, angular stalk, 



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