|): THE COMPOSITE FAMILY. [Aster. 
gardens under the name of Michaelmas Daisies. Our China Asters belong 
to a nearly allied genus from eastern Africa, a 
Flower-heads usually radiate. Involucral bracts few, oblong . 1. A. Tripolium. 
Flower-heads without rays. Involucral bracts numerous, narrow linear. 
2. A. Linosyris. 
1, A. Tripolium, Linn. (fig. 496), Sea Aster.—A glabrous peren- 
nial, seldom above a foot high, erect or decumbent at the base, slightly 
branched. Leaves linear, entire, somewhat succulent. Flower-heads in a 
rather compact corymb, the involucral bracts few and oblong. Florets of 
the ray purplish, numerous or few, and occasionally wanting, those of the 
disk longer than the involucre; the pappus also longer than the involucre, 
In salt-marshes, common in Europe and Russian Asia, except the 
extreme north. Extends along the British coasts to the north of Scotland. 
Fl. late in summer or autumn. 
2. 4. Ginosyris, Bernh. (fig. 497). Goldilocks Aster, Goldilocks.— 
A glabrous erect perennial, 6 inches toa foot high, with numerous nar- 
row linear, entire leaves, more or less dotted. Flower-heads in a rather 
compact terminal corymb, of a bright yellow, without any rays in this 
country, which had induced older botanists to characterize the plant as a 
distinct genus, but in Germany it has been found occasionally to bear the 
rays of an Aster. Involucres imbricated, with numerous narrow bracts 
shorter than the florets and the pappus. Achenes compressed and silky as 
in other Asters. Linosyris vulgaris, Cass. 
In clefts of rocks and on stony hills, and especially along gravelly banks 
of great rivers in south, central, and western Europe, to the Caucasus, not 
extending into northern Germany, although reappearing on the Isle of 
Oeland, in the Baltic. In Britain confined to a few limestone cliffs on the 
southern and western coasts of England and Wales. J. end of summer, 
or autumn. é 
An Aster with flat lanceolate occasionally toothed leaves, and loosely 
corymbose radiating flower-heads, has been found on the banks of the Tay, 
near Perth, and in Wicken fen in Cambridgeshire, and has been referred to 
A, salignus, Willd.; the specimens, however, do not appear to me to re- 
present the German plant of that name, but rather a garden variety of 
A. longifolius, Lam., a species long in cultivation, and which probably in™ 
the above localities is an escape from some garden. [The true 4. salignus 
has, however, been found as an escape from cultivation in Cambridgeshire. | 
Il]. ERIGERON. ERIGERON. 
Differs from Aster in the involucral bracts very narrow and numerous, 
and in the outer florets very numerous and much narrower, either forming 
a short coloured ray, or almost filiform and not projecting beyond the in- 
volucre and pappus. The regular, tubular, yellowish florets in the centre 
often reduced to very few. : | 
Its geographical range is even more extended than that of Aster, for 
several species are natives of the tropics; some are found in the extreme 
Arctic regions, or on the summits of the Alps, whilst others spread as weeds 
nearly all over the globe. . 
