NATIVE WILD FLOWERS 
coarse; but the species are numberless and their habits as 
various. The most elegant are the Aster cordifolius (L.), 
and A. puniceus (Ait.); the most delicate the little 
white shrubby Aster (A. multiflorus—L.), with reddish 
disc and golden-tipped anthers, which give a lovely look 
to the crowded small white-rayed flowers, as if they 
were spangled with gold-dust. On dry gravelly banks near 
lakes and streams is the favorite haunt of this pretty 
Aster. The plant is much branched, the branches growing 
at right-angles to the stem, crossed with narrow leaves, and 
bearing an abundance of small daisy-like blossoms. On the 
springy shores of ponds and the banks of low creeks an 
upright single-headed Aster (A. wstivus) may be seen, 
with bright azure rays and yellow disc, together with a tall 
woody-stemmed, flat-topped, coarsely-rayed white species, 
Diplopappus umbellatus (T. & G.). The large-flowered, 
branching, many-blossomed, purple-rayed Asters are chiefly 
found in dry fields, by wayside fences, and among loose 
rocks and stones, giving beauty where all else is rough and 
unsightly, making the desert to blossom as a garden. 
CoNEFLOWER—Rudbeckia hirta (L.). 
(PLATE VIL) 
The Coneflower is one of the handsomest of our rayed 
flowers. The gorgeous flaming orange dress, with the deep 
purple disc of almost metallic lustre, is one of the orna- 
ments of all our wild open prairie-like plains during the 
hot months of July, August and September. We find the 
Coneflower on sunny spots among the wild herbage of 
grassy thickets, associated with wild Sunflowers, Asters 
and other plants of the widely diffused Composite Order. 
Many of these compound flowers possess medicinal 
qualities. Some, as the Sow-thistle, Dandelion, Wild 
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