COMPOSITE 



THE FRUIT: achenes; pappus brown or white. 



Many of the plants of the Commons are stiff, even if 

 they are low growing, and the White-topped Aster is no ex- 

 ception. On the ground under the pine trees and practically 

 everywhere on the Commons are flat rosettes of spatulate 

 leaves, from which rise somewhat leafy stems, topped 

 with large, much branched clusters of what appear to be 

 small flowers of a pinkish cast. If these flower heads are 

 examined more closely, they are found to be a circle of 

 rays set within an outer circle, and under the strong lens 

 of the microscope, tiny flowers can be discerned. 



COMPOSITE COMPOSITE FAMILY 



Pluchea camphor ata, (L.) DC. 



Magenta-purple Salt-marsh Fleabane, 



Spicy Fleabane, 

 August-October Ploughman's Wort. 



Pluchea: dedicated to the Abbe Pluche, a French natural- 

 ist of the 18th century. 



Camphorata: Latin for camphor, in allusion to the strong 

 camphor odour of the plant. 



THE PREFERRED HABITAT: salt marshes. 



THE PLANT: erect, four inches to two feet high, usually 

 branched; the stem with short, soft hairs, sticky. 



THE LEAVES: opposite; ovate-oblong or lanceolate; three 

 inches to eight inches long, one inch wide or more; thick- 

 ish; with few short, soft hairs or none; acute or acuminate 

 at the apex; narrowed at the base; stemless, but not clasp- 

 ing, or the lower on short stems; serrate or denticulate; 

 not conspicuously net-veined. 



THE FLOWER HEADS: mostly in naked modified cymes; 

 bracts of the involucre ovate-lanceolate, acute, with tiny, 

 soft hairs. 



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