192 FLOWERS OF FIELD, HILL, AND SWAMP 



leaves are pointed, thin, sharply toothed. A variety of this is 

 one of the tallest golden-rods, the gigantic golden-rod. 



37 

 6'. gigantea, 5 to 8 feet high. A large flowing panicle of 

 bright-yellow flowers caps the stem. This is abundant. 



38. W^hite-topped Aster 



Sericocdrpus conyzoides. — Family, Composite. Color, 

 white, with pale -yellow centre. Leaves, serrate or smooth, 

 thin, sessile, 3-nerved, long, narrow, hairy. Time, July. 



Disk and ray flowers present. A common, conspicuous 

 plant, found on borders of thickets and woods and along road- 

 sides, in dry, sandy soil. 



The flowers grow in flat-topped clusters, on tall plants I to 4 

 feet high. They resemble asters or small daisies. The involucral 

 scales are whitish, with green tips, turned back, thick and leath- 

 ery. Maine to Ohio and southward. 



39 



5. solidagineus is a species with smaller clusters of flowers, 

 narrower and stiffer leaves, more tapering at the base, and 

 with rough margins, found near the coast, from Connecticut 

 and Long Island, southward, and westward to Tennessee. It 

 flowers in July. 



The fruit of both species is fine and silky. 



40. Umbelled Aster 



Aster utnbellaius. — Color, white. Leaves, tapering at both 

 ends. 



Very tall, 7 feet or less, and leafy to the top. Flowers 

 grouped in compound corymbs, small. The lower leaves are 

 6 inches long. 



In moist soil, along roadsides. Varieties of this aster are 

 found westward and southward in New Jersey pine barrens and 

 Pennsvlvania. 



