180 COMPOSIT.E. Aster. 



DC. Prodr. v. 233. A. ciliatus, Nutt. Trans. Am. Phil. Soc. vii. 295, not Walt. — Prairies, 

 W. Louisiana and Texas ; first coll. by Drummond. 



-I— H— Heads smaller, usually numerous and racemosely disposed on virgate simple steins: involu- 

 cre closer and of small bracts: akenes silky-villous. 



"A. concolor, L. Stems slender, 2 feet high, sometimes from a tuberous-thickened root- 

 stock, very leafy : leaves small, canescent with minute pubescence, rarely glabrate, from 

 oblong to short-linear; the lower on fertile stems only inch long, above gradually reduced in' 

 the inflorescence to small bracts : heads rather narrow (4 lines high) : bracts of tlie involucre 



* lanceolate, erect, sericeous-cauesceut ; the tips short and narrov/, or sometimes more pro- 

 longed : rays 10 to 15, 3 or 4 lines long, violet-purple. — • Spec. ed. 2, ii. 1228 ; Walt. Car. 

 209 ; Torr. & Gray, Fl. ii. 113 ; Bertol. Jlisc. Bot. vii. t. 6. — Sandy or gravelly soil, mostly 

 in pine barrens, toward the coast, Rhode Island to Florida and Louisiana. 



# 5. luvolucre turbinate, pluriserial, not glandular; the appressed coriaceous whitish bracts with 

 definite and short (uiostly ovate) and slightlj' squarrose green tips, outer successively shorter: 

 heads rather small, but large in proportion to the minute (line or two lona) crowded and uniform 

 caiiline hares; radical leaves rosulate, subsessile, abruptly larger and very unlike the cauline, 

 sometimes an inch long: herbage scabrous: rays violet, 3 or 4 lines long: akenes shoi't, pubes- 

 cent: floweving late in autumn. — Bii.vcHYPHYX^Li. 



A. squarrosus, Walt. Stems rigid, slender, paniculately much branched, a foot or two 

 higli, bearing sc:ittered heads : branches throughout uniformly squarrose with the minute 

 recurved-spreading rigid leaves ; these mostly ovate-subulate and a line long ; lowest on 

 sterile shoots 2 or 3 lines long, lanceolate-subulate, mucronate-cuspidate : bracts of the obo- 

 vate-turbinate involucre with very obtuse or roundish green tips. — Car. 209 ; Michx, Fl. 

 ii. U2; Ell. Sk. ii. 530; Torr. & Gray, Fh ii. 114. — Dry pine barrens, N. Carolina to 

 Florida. 



A. adnatus, Nutt. More hispidulous-scabrons and virgately branched : leaves almost' im- 

 bricated on the stem and branches, lanceolate-oblong, with clasping base, appressed and i)y- 

 the midrib adnate to the stem for most of their length, only the lowest larger and free : 

 heads rather smaller and involucral bracts acutish. — Jour. Acad, Philad. vii. 82; Hook. 

 Comp. Bot. Mag. i. 97 ; Tor^. & Gray, 1. c. A. miaophyllus, Torr, ex Lindl. in DC. Prodr. 

 V. 244 ; Bertol. Misc. Bot. vi. t. 5. — Pine barrens of Alabama and W. Florida. 



#6. Involucre ovoid with turbinate base or campanulate, appressed-imbricated, pluriserial; the 

 bracts narrow, coriaceous, minutely granulose or scabrous, but not glandular, acute, with indis- 

 tinctly marked green tips, the outer successively shorter : whole herbage scabi-ous-pubescent : 

 crndine leaves all with sessile and completehj cordale-claspini/ base, the basal lobes generally 

 meeting or overlapping around the stem; radical not cordate; all entire: heads showy: akenes 

 many-st]-iate, sericeous-pubescent, nai'row. — Patejstes. 



' A. patens, Ait. Stems 2 or 3 feet higli, with long and slender rigid divergent branches, 

 mostly bearing single heads : leaves from oblong to broadly lanceolate, rather rigid, scabrous, 

 rarely with obscure serratures, roughly liispidulou.s-ciliolate ; the cauline an inch or two long, 

 sometimes narrowed above the broad auriculate clasping base ; those of the branchlets grad- 

 ually reduced to small subulate bracts : heads half-inch or less high : r:rys a third to half an 

 inch long, about 24, deep violet. — Ait. Kew. iii. 201 ; Pursh, Fl. ii. 551 ; Torr. & Gray, Fh 

 ii. 114. A. undidatus, Ell. Sk. ii. 361, not L. A. amplexicaalis, Michx. Fl. ii. 114; Bigel. 

 F'l. Bo.st. ed. 2, 312, not Lam. A. patentissitnns, Lindl. in DC. Prodr. v. 232, a rigid and loug- 

 branched form. —Dry open grounds, Massacliusetts to Florida, west tn ilichigan, Arkansas, 

 and Texas. 



-»■->• Var. gracilis, Hook. A foot or two high, more slender : heads and oblong to oval 

 leaves smaller and more scabrous. — Comp. Bot. Mag. i. 97. — Alabama to Texas, &c., a 

 common Sonth-nestcrn form. 



""- Var. phlogifolius, Xees. The other extreme : leaves larger (catiline 3 or 4 inches 

 long, an incli or more wide, softer and membranaceous), hardly scabrous, sometimes con- 

 tracted above an auriculate-dilated base: heads p.anicnlnte on shorter branches: involucral 

 bracts in fewer ranks, almost glabr..ns. — Ast. 49 ; Torr. & GraN-, 1 c. A. nhloqifoUas Muhl. 

 m WiUd. ni. 2034; Nutt. Gen. ii. 156. A. alatus, Aikin in Eaton & M'rigiit ]\lan. 146 ? 

 A. aaritns, LmdL in DC. 1. c, cultivated form, with thinner and lax i nvolucre. — In woods 

 or shady moist ground, New York to North Carolina and Tennessee. A part of A. undulatus, 

 L., may belong here. 



