ASTER SYMPODIALIS 363 
Stem 3 to 4 ft. tall, terete, pale or dark brown, glabr ate, erect 
and leafy. Rootstock- -runners become 9 in. long, H6 in. thick, 
very uniform, of a dingy yellowish-brown, with nodes 3$ in. apart, 
bearing a crescentic scar halfway round. Ascending turionic 
branches of these rootstocks become 4 in. thick, deeper brown, 
i finally black, and bear larger and more numerous radicals with 
successive years 
E Radicals usually 3, often 2, sometimes 5, crowning a very 
short, thick, black rootstock, which decays close to its assurgent 
end. 
Leaf-type broad-cordate to cordate-ovate, 7 x 5 in.,6 x 4 or 
less, with low-curvescent margin, broad, deep, enlarged, squarish 
| or many-curved sinus, and simply acute or very briefly-acuminate 
ape Leaves thickish, somewhat succulent when young, full 
green above, very pale and glabrate beneath, yaa veins darker 
above and paler beneath than the surrounding tiss 
Radical petioles longer than the leaf, j ke with dark 
glandular hairs within, ciliate and strigose-hairy without; as the 
veins beneath. 
Fine close tomentum of brownish glandular stubs clothes the 
stem and infloresence, though worn away from the lower stem at 
flowering-time. No obvious hair anywhere then 
ower caulines similar to the radicals or exceeding them. 
Middle caulines elliptic or ovate-acuminate with rounded or ene 
cate base ; and a broad cuneate wing, I in. long or more. 
caulines similar or oval, d as the axiles, which with the 
rameals, become oblong-acumina 
Inflorescence long- ae. at first leafy and loose, form- 
ing a broad rounded corymb with violet rays ; later very proliferous, 
irregular and dingy-white. Lateral ascending branches alter its 
appearance altogether, clothing the upper foot-length of the 
stem with a succession of erect few-flowered corymbs of 4 to 6 
heads each; or with repeated suppression of axis, the lateral 
branch overtopping its axis and its own summit overtopped in 
turn by one of its lateral buds, and so on repeatedly.” Continuous 
lateral development of this kind is not usually balanced on both. 
sides but tends to a sympodial form, with wholly one-sided over- 
topping; reaching an extreme in a stem 6 times suppressed and 
continued by an arising lateral branch at the left, within an inflores- 
cence of 22 in. high. 
Pedicels often over 1 or 2 in. long, very slender and threadlike 
but stiff and erect, as are the secondary peduncles, which may 
reach 3 or 4 in. long ; ; both are subtended by inconspicuous sup- 
pressed subulate bracteals. 
leads large, 1,8, in. broad or less, deliciously fragrant, the 
K 
