HARPER'S GUIDE TO WILD FLOWERS 



above with smooth margins, variable as to shape. Flowers not so 

 crowded as in some species, rather large. 



A bushy and coarse-stemmed plant. Common as far south 

 as Virginia in low, rather wet grounds. 



Umbelled Aster 

 A. umbellktus. — Color, white, sometimes with a suggestion of 

 pink. Rays rather few. Flowers, grouped in compound, flat 

 corymbs, small. Leaves, tapering at both ends, smooth mar- 

 gined or slightly serrate. Lower leaves 6 inches long. Stem, tall, 

 leafy to the top, 7 feet or less. 



In moist soil along roadsides. Varieties of this aster are 

 found westward and southward from New Jersey and 

 Pennsylvania. 



Whorled or Mountain Aster 



A. a.cumina.tus. — Color, white or purplish. The stem of this 

 aster is slender, single, branched, softly hairy, more or less zig- 

 zag and bent, 1 to 3 feet high. Flowers, with long, narrow rays, 

 about 1 5 in number, the heads numerous, on the ends of branches. 

 Leaves, thin, oblong or lance-shaped, very pointed above, taper- 

 ing below, sharply toothed, often appearing whorled near the 

 top. June to September. 



Moist woods as far south as Pennsylvania, farther south 

 in the mountains. 



Daisy Fleabane. Sweet Scabious 



Erigeron annuus — Family, Composite. Color, white, with a 

 purplish tinge. These are flowers, sometimes weeds, much like 

 the asters, but with finer, softer, more numerous rays. Annual, 

 1 to 4 feet high, with softly hairy, stout-branched stem bearing 

 the rather large flowers in loose corymbs near the ends of the 

 branches. Leaves, coarse and large below, toothed, ovate, on a 

 margined petiole. Those above ovate or linear, becoming at 

 length bracts. May to November. 



In dry fields West and South. (See illustration, p. 137.) 



Daisy Fleabane 



E. rambsus. — This may be known from the last by its gen- 

 erally entire leaves, which, with the stem, are almost smooth. 

 Upper leaves scattered, lance-shaped; lower, broader. Heads 

 with longer white rays than the last. June to October. 



Fleabanes, when dried and hung inside the house, were 

 once considered poisonous to insects. Fields, common as 

 far south as Virginia. 



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