From Blue to Purple 



masses of small, pale lavender flower-heads look like a mist hang- 

 ing from one to five feet above the earth in and about the woods 

 and shady roadsides from September even to December in favored 

 places. 



The Wavy or Various-leaved Aster or Small Fleabane (A. un~ 

 dulatus) has a stiff, rough, hairy, widely branching stalk, whose 

 thick, rough lowest leaves are heart-shaped and set on long foot- 

 stems ; above these, the leaves have shorter stems, dilating where 

 they clasp the stalk; the upper leaves, lacking stems, are seated 

 on it, while those of the branches are shaped like tiny awls. The 

 flowers, which measure less than an inch across, often grow 

 along one side of an axis as well as in the usual raceme. Eight 

 to fifteen pale blue to violet rays surround the disks which, yel- 

 low at first, become reddish brown in maturity. We find the 

 plant in dry soil, blooming in September and October. 



By no means tardy, the Late Purple Aster, so-called, or Purple 

 Daisy {A. patens), begins to display its purplish-blue, daisy-like 

 flower-heads early in August, and farther north may be found in 

 dry, exposed places only until October. Rarely the solitary flow- 

 ers, that are an inch across or more, are a deep, rich violet. 

 The twenty to thirty rays which surround the disk, curling in- 

 ward to dry, expose the vase-shaped, green, shingled cups that 

 terminate each little branch. The thick, somewhat rigid, oblong 

 leaves, tapering at the tip, broaden at the base to clasp the rough, 

 slender stalk. Range similar to the next species. 



Certainly from Massachusetts, northern New York, and Min- 

 nesota southward to the Gulf of Mexico one may expect to find 

 the New England Aster or Starwort {A. Novce-Anglice), one of the 

 most striking and widely distributed of the tribe, in spite of its 

 local name. It is not unknown in Canada. The branching clus- 

 ters of violet or magenta-purple flower-heads, from one to two 

 inches across — composites containing as many as forty to fifty 

 purple ray florets around a multitude of perfect five-lobed, tubu- 

 lar, yellow disk florets in a sticky cup — shine out with royal 

 splendor above the swamps, moist fields, and roadsides from Au- 

 gust to October. The stout, bristle-hairy stem bears a quantity of 

 alternate lance-shaped leaves lobed at the base where they clasp it. 



In even wetter ground we find the Red-stalked, Purple- 

 stemmed, or Early Purple Aster, Cocash, Swanweed, or Meadow 

 Scabish (^A. puniceus) blooming as early as July or as late as 

 November. Its stout, rigid stem, bristling with rigid hairs, may 

 reach a height of eight feet to display the branching clusters of pale 

 violet or lavender flowers. The long, blade-like leaves, usually 

 very rough above and hairy along the midrib beneath, are seated 

 on the stem. 



The lovely Smooth or Blue Aster {A. Icevis), whose sky-blue 

 or violet flower-heads, about one inch broad, are common through 

 September and October in dry soil and open woods, has strongly 



74 



