224 DESCRIPTION OF ASTER; DIVARICATI 
he wrote “ flosculi in medio” or “ in disco." — Others may object that 
Clayton meant to say that all the heads on the plant constitute one 
little umbel. But to construe him in this way, applying the same 
method to his A. grandiflorus, would make him say of that species, 
“ It bears a single handsome head," whereas it is evident that he 
meant by his flore specioso, “ with handsome heads." So of our 
common thoroughwort, Clayton wrote “flore albo," and thus to 
put the singular for the plural was with him a frequent elegance. 
2. Semiflosculis . . . niveis describes well the snow-white rays 
of A. Claytoni as distinguished from the dull white of A. ericoides 
or A. multiflorus for which Clayton uses simply albus. 
3. Amplexicaulibus is used of the axiles, from their truncate 
and at first conduplicate bases which seem when young to be 
Mei 
ule ramoso subligneo fusco; because the stem of A. 
Ue oiii branches deeper down than most of its allies, is less often 
green, and is tougher, z. e., a little more woody. 
5. Crescit saxosis lutosis ct umbrosis ; for A. Claytoni seems to 
require three essentials in its habitat, rock, clay and (moderate) 
shade. 
6. Initio Septembris floret. On the other hand, A. divaricatus 
flowers more in October than in September in the Potomac and 
Rappahannock latitudes. 
1771. Here occurred the first identification of Clayton’s plant 
no. 767; and the only identification which I find in print prior to 
mine of 1898. — This occurs in Johann Reinhold Forster's Florae 
Americae Septentrionalis — or a catalogue of the plants of North 
America, printed in his translation of Bossu’s Travels, London, 
1771, where, p. 51—53, he enumerates 21 Asters, first of which 
he names A. divaricatus apparently intending the name as Linnaeus 
used it, and including both A. divaricatus L. and Doellingeria 
infirma. Lastly he mentions A. macrophyllus, adding as a refer- 
ence *' Gron. A. Virg., p. 125? <A. foliis cordatis, acutis. serratis, 
petiolatis, summis ovatis, etc." ; i. e., suggesting that Clayton's no. 
767 may be A. macrophyllus. This identification we could not 
admit for Clayton's description required snow-white rays. Forster 
was no doubt led to his reference of 767 to macrophyllus by the 
following considerations: (1) No other Claytonian species could 
be referred to A. macrophyllus. But Clayton may never have seen 
A. macrophyllus at all; or if he secured it in his trips to the Blue 
Ridge, it may have been one of the plants in his last ill-fated col- 
