230 DESCRIPTION OF ASTERS; DIVARICATI 
Axillary inflorescences dense, irregularly convex, continuing 
throughout or half down; in shorter little-developed plants, 
merely terminally clustered; and borne on short stiff peduncles 
which do not much exceed the uM. leaves; pedicels of 
quite irregular lengths, chiefly -? $% in. or less, with sessile buds 
intermixed. Branches given off at a high angle. 
Heads small, about 34 in. broad, 1% in. high. Rays chiefly 6, 
sometimes 8, oblong, the breadth 14 the length. 
Bracts quite uniform, narrow-lingual; an acutish lowermost 
bract or an attenuate innermost bract being seldom developed; 
their ciliation moderate ; color confined to the narrow green mid- 
rib which expands but slightly at the tip. 
— Growing in long lines out of narrow fissures in gneiss, in 
part shade, and spreading to neighboring rock-ledges and to 
meadow-borders, near N. Y. City, last half of piedad 
Examples : 
N. Y. vic., Zuood, Se. 27,'97 ; Se. 22,798, Se., 1903, Se. '04, °05. /ndian- 
es, Se. 16,798. Central Park, Ramble, Se. 27, '98. Yonkers, Park Hill, Oc. 10, 
. Bryn Mawr Park, esp., Split Rocks, Se. 25, '97, Se. 17, ’98, Oc. 21, '98 (late 
survivors with rays turning crimson but disks still inconspicuous), Se. 16, '99, Se. 28 
1900 ; no survivors could be found, 1901-1905. 
Variants include : 
32* Synucopate form ; M og um almost suppressed and heads 
very densely crowded. h type, Split Rocks, Se. 17, be DE; 
16, '99, Se. 28, 1900; ie replaced by a garden, 190 
42° Reniform form, derived from 32? evidently, and ib 
with it, but extremely dissimilar, many or most of the upper leaves 
being broadly reniform, 134 in. broad, 34 in. long or less, with 
broad shallow sinus, and with convex front, with or without a 
minutely apiculate midrib.—Split Rocks, Se. 19 "95, OG £6 
'98, etc. 
Affinity. The descent or relationship of variant forms in A. 
mollescens seems very plainly traceable in the Split Rocks plants, 
or was for 4 years until building interfered. The typical form is 
there the most abundant form, and originally formed several narrow 
lines of plants in fissures at top of a partially shaded cliff; with 
many other allied Asters near, but less numerous. Surrounding 
these rocks, A. mollescens was still the prevailing species in '97 and 
'98, but its characters becoming less distinct with distance and 
presently verging toward A. C/aytoni into which remote individuals 
seemed finally to pass. Some of the rows in the typical locality 
had become modified into what I have called the Syncopate form 
