228 DESCRIPTION OF ASTERS; DIVARICATI 
sinus of very gentle curves. Petiole usually less than half the 
leaf-breadth. 
Leaves very dark green, with still darker veins, finely areolate 
under a lens with blackish veinlets, the under surface paler and 
apple-green. 
Rameals oblong, triangular, serrulate, sessile. 
Radicals suborbicular, crenate, with brace-base. 
Aster ebeneus e. | 
Fic. 43. 
Inflorescence profuse and very floriferous, its numerous closely 
ascending branches rising at a high angle from near the base, or 
in smaller plants from near the middle of the stem. Large inflor- a 
escences are sometimes 2 ft. high and 1 ft. broad; more usual 
ones, I ft. by 7 in. 
Heads small, about 24 in. broad, about 1% in. high, loosely 
borne on rather long filiform divergent corymbose pedicels, the 
branches leaving the stem like those of A. C/aytoni, but closer 
and more numerous, more repeatedly divided above, and not um- 
belliferous in aspect but corymbose-paniculate. Rays white, 
