T2 VARIATION IN ASTER 
No one without similar experience would imagine the difficulty 
of securing a new name which shall be duly expressive and which 
has not been already used as an Aster name, so many hundreds 
of synonyms already existing. Yet I have usually succeeded in 
naming from some characteristic, it may be in aspect, leaf-form, 
time of blossom, habitat, etc. It is not to be assumed, however, 
that the characteristics thus furnishing names are wholly restricted 
to the species bearing them; these are also shared by other 
species, but usually in less degree. Aster fragrans for instance 
is not the only Aster species which is apt to be fragrant in early 
blossom ; but it is more apt to be so, and to be lastingly so, than 
are its relatives. So Aster fimbriatus is one of many species with 
a tendency to fimbriate rays: but it possesses the tendency in 
stronger degree than others. So Aster biformis is not alone in 
having a sudden reduction of leaf-type from a large, lower leaf- 
form to a small differently shaped upper leaf-type ; but this reduc- 
tion, which is occasional elsewhere, seems in Aster biformis to 
have become a fixed habit. 
NORMAL CHARACTERS 
COINCIDENT LEAF-FORMS 
Aster leaf-forms normal upon a single plant.—Plants of the 
genus Aster are peculiarly liable to mistaken identification on 
account of their complex leaf-series. The principal steps in the 
series are commonly the eight following : 
(2) Primordial leaf (so termed by Nees, 1832), usually a single 
leaf following a few more or less rudimentary scales. This leaf is 
very commonly orbicular, is very much smaller than those follow- 
ing, and different from them in surface and margin. It soon dis- 
appears in most cases ; in A. roscidus, and in late shoots of other 
allies of A. macrophyllus, it is sometimes persistent to the end of 
the flowering season. 
(4) Radical leaves; 2 or 3 ona shoot in A. macrophyllus ; usually 
2 in A. Schreberi, A. multiformis; usually 3 in A. zanthinus, A. ros- 
cidus ; often 4, sometimes several more, in A. nobilis; often 5 or 
more in A. laevis, A. undulatus, etc.; often 10 or more in certain allies 
of A. macrophyllus in their plantain-leaved stages. The presence 
