NATIVE WILD FLOWEBS 



coarse; but the species are numberless and their habits as 

 various. The most elegant are the Aster cordifolius (L.), 

 and A. puniceus (Ait.) ; the most delicate the little 

 white shrubby Aster (A. multiflorus L.), with reddish 

 disc and golden-tipped anthers, which give a lovely look 

 to the crowded small white-rayed flowers, as if they 

 were spangled with gold-dust. On dry gravelly banks near 

 lakes and streams is the favorite haunt of this pretty 

 Aster. The plant is much branched, the branches growing 

 at right-angles to the stem, crossed with narrow leaves, and 

 bearing an abundance of small daisy-like blossoms. On the 

 springy shores of ponds and the banks of low creeks an 

 upright single-headed Aster (A. wstivus) may be seen, 

 with bright azure rays and yellow disc, together with a tall 

 woody-stemmed, flat-topped, coarsely-rayed white species, 

 Diplopappus umbellatus (T. & G.). The large-flowered, 

 branching, many-blossomed, purple-rayed Asters are chiefly 

 found in dry fields, by wayside fences, and among loose 

 rocks and stones, giving beauty where all else is rough and 

 unsightly, making the desert to blossom as a garden. 



CONEFLOWER Rudbeckia liirta (L.). 



(PLATE VII.) 



The Coneflower is one of the handsomest of our rayed 

 flowers. The gorgeous flaming orange dress, with the deep 

 purple disc of almost metallic lustre, is one of the orna- 

 ments of all our wild open prairie-like plains during the 

 hot months of July, August and September. We find the 

 Coneflower on sunny spots among the wild herbage of 

 grassy thickets, associated with wild Sunflowers, Asters 

 and other plants of the widely diffused Composite Order. 



Many of these compound flowers possess medicinal 

 qualities. Some, as the Sow-thistle, Dandelion, Wild 



us 



