566 



COMPOSITE. 



land Hills; Petrified Forest; Vaca Mountains; Blue Lakes, Lake Co.; 

 Sierra Nevada. July-Sept. 



2. A. Menziesii Lindl. Purple Aster. Stems simple, com- 

 monly several from the woody root, 1£ to 2 ft. high; herbage cinerous 

 or almost glabrous, the foliage rough-pubescent; leaves linear to 

 lanceolate, 1 to 1\ in. long, purple-veined beneath, remotely serrate 

 or entire, sessile, subcordate at base, those of the raceme or "thyreoid 

 panicle much reduced, so that the inflorescence seems almost naked; 

 heads 3 to 5 lines high on rigid erect branchlets; involucre hemis- 

 pherical or broadly turbinate, the bracts linear-spatulate in several 

 closely imbricated ranks, the green tips obtuse; rays violet or purple. 



Low dry ground: Vacaville and southward to Southern California. 

 Sept. -Nov. Apparently rare in our region. 



3. A. Chilensis Nees. Common Aster. Two to ?>\ ft. high, 

 villous-pubescent or more or less glabrous; leaves lanceolate, sessile, 

 5 in. long or less, entire, above passing gradually into the bract-like 

 ones of the inflorescence, the radical oblong-spatulate, remotely 

 serrate and attenuate into a petiole, all commonly with scabrous- 

 ciliolate margins; panicle of loose leafy racemes 6 in. long or more; 

 heads 4 to 5 lines high; involucral bracts in several series, somewhat 

 carinate, with green tips; rays white, lavender, or bluish, 4 to 6 

 lines long. 



Wooded hillsides, dry banks of gulches or streams, or in moist 

 situations in fields: the most common species of the Baj 7 Region. 

 Sept.-Nov. Passing on the one hand into the 



Var. lentus (A. lentus Greene). Slender, 4 to 6 ft. high, slightly 

 succulent, mostly glabrous; heads few and large; rays 7 to 9 lines 

 long. — Very common and conspicuous in the Suisun Marshes. 



A form abundant on the Lower Sacramento River has linear-falcate 

 leaves (9 in. long or less), and mostly solitary rather large heads. 

 Referred provisionally to A. Douglasii Lindl. in Erythea, i. 244. On 

 the other hand the following varieties have smaller and fewer (some- 

 times solitary) heads with shorter rays than in the type, with the 

 inflorescence disposed to be more cymose; leaves of the inflorescence 

 mainly much reduced and the transition to the ordinary leaves more 

 abrupt. 



Var. media. Branchlets of the inflorescence rather divaricate, 

 with many spatulate-oblong or oblong-lanceolate spreading leaves 2 

 to 3 lines long; heads few, those on the same branchlets maturing at 

 very unequal periods. — Lower Sacramento, Jepson, and Saratoga, 

 Davy. A form from Evergreen, Santa Clara Co., Dan/, Sept. 26, 

 1893, in fl., doubtfully referred here, has a very leafy stem, similar 

 branchlets, leaves 6 to 7 in. long, large solitary heads, and the bracts 

 of the involucre in few ranks. 



Var. invenustus (A. invenustus Greene). Herbage cinereous- 

 pubescent; upper leaves and those of the inflorescence small; involu- 

 cral bracts spatulate-linear, thickish, obtuse, in rather few ranks, 

 almost wholly herbaceous; rays dull purplish. — Local form at Calis- 

 toga, Greene. 



