138 DESCRIPTION OF ASTERS; DIVARICATI 
rounded and finally lingual. The leaves are smooth, not ex- 
tremely thick, but very heavy and coarse in texture. Some 
cauline leaves are broadly, short-cordate. No glands are present. 
The rays are large and white, chiefly 8. 
That the foregoing are merely luxuriant states of A. macro- 
phyllus consequent upon stimulating soil seems disproved by the 
totally dissimilar inflorescence. The plants have a strong sugges- 
tion of hybrid origin despite their wide distribution. They are, 
however, very different from many other intermediate forms pre- 
sumably hybrids of similar parentage, and they are most con- 
veniently referred to by having a name of their own. I therefore 
retain for them Nees’ herbarium name, A. viridis, a name appro- 
priate to an aster which derives its great distinction from its lux- 
uriance of vegetation. I think them more conveniently enumerated 
as a species than otherwise ; and who shall disallow a species be- 
cause it is of mixed blood or shall say how many crosses may 
not have occurred in the past in the ancestry of some of our most 
familiar and most accredited species ? 
The foregoing A. viridis and the preceding A. divaricatus 
fontinalis are, however, the only presumable hybrids which I have 
enumerated as species or variety, and these because already so 
named. Other presumable hybrids I have described without 
name, under the indication of their supposed parents, as A. um- 
belliformis x A. divaricatus, infra. 
3. Aster arenicola sp. nov. 
Small delicate plants in sheltered bushy places near streams, 
in sands near the coast; with narrow bracts and small oblong- 
ovate acuminate leaves, low-serrulate and pale. 
Name, L., — sand-dweller. 
Fic. 11, plant from West Tisbury, M. V., Au. '96, in hb. Bu., with charac- 
teristic leaf and bract. 
Stem chiefly green and about 10 in. high, inflorescence 4 in. or 
often only 2 in. across. Puberulence present slightly over the 
stem and the serrulate leaves. Coarse teeth few. Flower buds 
globular, profusely webbed by the long ciliation of the bracts. 
Differs from typical A. divaricatus L., with which it often 
grows, as follows: its long leaves are not so long, and are serru- 
late, not coarse-serrate ; its teeth are not so sharp nor large, are 
