SPECIES AND VARIATIONS OF ASTER 
ASTER L, 
Perennial, branching, glabrous or pubescent herbs, various in 
habit, but only in a few species annual, unbranched, shrubby or 
spinescent. Leaves alternate, pinnately veined, broad or narrow, 
often cordate at the base of the leaf-blade or clasping at that of 
the petiole, non-dissected, chiefly serrate, but sometimes entire. 
Rootstock usually strong and horizontal, sometimes short and 
erect, usually bearing for several years a subterminal tuft of leaves 
(radicals); these are often smaller, often larger than the somewhat 
dissimilar leaves (éasa/ leaves) which finally clothe the base of 
the rising stem. Lower, middle and upper cauline leaves poly- 
morphous, often gradually transitional to each other in form, often 
of sharply dissimilar types. At the axils of the branches the sub- 
tending leaves (axi/es) are gradually reduced from the upper leaf- 
form of the stem, but on the branches themselves the leaves 
(rameals or bracteals) are usually profoundly modified or are 
abruptly of a new type. 
Heads with both tubular and radiate flowers, either corymbed, 
racemed or panicled, and borne on erect, spreading or secund 
ultimate branchlets ( pedicels), rarely solitary. Involucre campan- 
ulate, turbinate, cylindric or hemispheric ; its components (bracts) 
imbricated in several series ; the outer sometimes enlarged and folia- 
ceous, but usually smaller and shorter than the inner, and somewhat 
herbaceous or otherwise much modified at or toward the apex 
(this modified portion constituting the green tp), which is itself 
either erect, spreading or squarrose. Receptacles flat or convex, 
alveolate or foveolate and often delicately fimbrillate. Ray-flowers 
pistillate, with white, pink, purple, blue or violet ligules (rays). 
Disk-flowers perfect, numerous, consisting of a tubular base (the 
tube) swollen above into the shape of an erect bell, urn or funnel 
(the de//), bearing a short, five-lobed spreading or erect border ; 
disks typically yellow, usually. changing to red, brown or purple. 
Anthers obtuse and entire at the base. Stigmas flattened, their 
appendages subulate, lanceolate or ovate, acute. Achenes com- 
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