Aster.] COMPOSITE. 249 



medullary chord, running far in a horizontal direction and very difficult of extir- 

 pation. Scapes few or many, from the crown of the root, about a span high, 

 simple, rounded and furrowed, hollow, covered with a loose cottony web inter- 

 mixed wiih short glandular pubescence, and imbricated with alternate, erect, ovate 

 or lanceolate, somewhat sheathing scales (bracts), of a brownish or purplish colour. 

 Flowers terminal, solitary, at tirst drooping, afterwards erect, bright yellow, 

 appearing before and during the development of the leaves. involucre of 

 numerous uniserial, unequal, blunt, I- or 2-ribbed, linear, coloured scales (bracts) 

 rather shorter than the rays of the florets, glanduloso-pilose, their tips glabrous. 

 Florets of the circumference pistilliferous only, very numerous and slender, with 

 long extremely narrow rays, rounded and enlire at the apex. Styles much exsert- 

 ed, striated, shortly cleft into 2 small, erect, cylindrical lobes, covered with 

 granular points. Florets of the disk comparatively few, the limb deeply divided 

 into 5 lanceolate-acute segments, suddenly contracted beneath into the narrow 

 cylindrical tube. Anthers without basal appendages, but with pale, glandular, 

 acute tips, connivent over and concealing the style, which is not cloven, the trun- 

 cate summit of its thick abruptly clavate extremity marked only by a transverse 

 fissure. Receptacle quite naked. Leaves acquiring their full dimensions long 

 after the flowers are past. Achenium linear, pale brown, bluntly angular, without 

 ribs, glabrous. Pappus sessile, pilose, pure white, shining, single-rowed, spinu- 

 loso-dentate, striated, about three times the length of the seed. 



Torrey and Gray, Fl. N. Am. ii. p. 94, affirm the styles and achenia of the disk 

 to be abortive, and the pappus of the ligulate florets to be pluriserial. 



The trivial name is probably an abbreviation oi faeere fare, or perhaps more 

 directly from the Italian /ar /are, from its demulcent virtue in coughs and hoarse- 

 ness, for which it is still an approved remedy. The bruised flowers have a weak 

 aromatic smell like those of the garden Angelica. 



My friend Mr. Gillson, of Stonepits, near Ryde, in whose garden this plant 

 proved very troublesome, found that the creeping root was effectually destroyed 

 by cutting off' the plant just beneath the surface as often as itappeared, by a con- 

 tinual repetition of which he has completely succeeded in eradicating it. 



The sweet-scented Butter-bur (Petasites fragrans), a native, I believe, of south- 

 ern Italy in Calabria, upon mountains, is now quite naturalized on moist ditch- 

 banks, under hedges near gardens, and in orchards, in very many parts of the 

 island, it being a general favourite, from the delicate fragrance of its early flowers, 

 which are produced in mild seasons as early as January or February. It is found 

 all over the grounds at Swainston, where, Sir Bichard Simeon assures me, it 

 makes excellent shelter for pheasants ; also at the foot of walls at Bembridge, and 

 in the orchard and hedges adjoining, at E. Cowes Castle. 



III. AsTEE, Linn. Starwort. 



" Achenes compressed. Pappus pilose, in many rows. Recep- 

 tacle naked. Involucre imbricated, sometimes with a few scales 

 on the peduncle. Anthers without bristles at the base. Florets 

 of the disk yellow ; of the ray purple or white, and in 1 or vei-y 

 rarely 2 rows." — Br. Fl. 



The genus Aster, like that of Eupalorium, is pre-eminently American, Britain 

 possessing but one and Europe but two or three species. The American Asters 

 are almost innumerable, being probably greatly over-multiplied, from the diffi- 

 culty attending their discrimination. 



1. A. Tripolium, L. Sea Starwort. " Stem glabrous corym- 

 bose, leaves linear-lanceolate fleshy obscurely 3-nerved, scales of 

 the involucre lanceolate membranous obtuse all erect and imbri- 

 cated." — Br.Fl.^.2S6. E.B.t.87. Tripolium vulgare, iVees. 



/3. Ray partly or entirely wanting. 



2 K 



