COTONE ASTER. 



177 



The blossoms with erect petals are borne on 

 short downy stems in umbels of one to four. 

 The petals, ovate in form, are scarcely longer 

 than the calyx, and shorter than the anthers. 

 The berries are erect, red, and rather downy. 

 A native of the Parnassus, the Balkans, Syria, 

 and (according to Decaisne) Sicily also. 



C. tomentosa (Lindley). — Either a dwarf 

 shrub or rarely a little over 6 feet. Ratherwiry 

 in habit; the shoots covered with bright grey 

 or yellowish-grey down at first. Leaves dark 

 green above, not glossy, and almost smooth ; 

 the under sides and edges covered with whit- 

 ish grey hairs. The leaf is oval, broad in shape, 

 slightly pointed at end, and the tip furnished 

 with a spine. During June the bright rose- 

 coloured flowers appear, from three to fifteen 

 in number, in a single umbel or cluster of um- 

 bels at the ends of the side and top branches. 

 The berries are scarlet. A very handsome and 

 hardy shrub, belonging to the hills of central 

 and southern Europe, and extending as far as 

 the Caucasus. 



C. nigra (Wahlberg) (Black Rockspray). — 

 A wiry shrub, a little over 3 feet at its highest, 

 the early shoots covered with thick grey down, 

 afterwards almost smooth. The leaves light 

 green at first, the upper sides more or less 

 hairy ; later on they take a darker shade of 

 green and become smooth on the upper side, 

 remaining covered beneath with a fine grey 

 down, and the edges fringed. The leaves are 

 generally oval-shaped, but sometimes roundly 

 ovate ; generally ending in a spine, but some- 

 times rounded off" at both ends, and sometimes 

 with a suggestion of heart-shape at the base. 

 The pale red blossoms appear from the middle 

 of May, in number from three to eight, borne 

 on long stalks, generally in two-leaved, less fre- 

 quently one or three-leaved, hairy, loose, pen- 

 dulous, single or double (in cold climates short 

 stalked), two to five blossomed, almost erect 

 and compact umbels. The petals are very short 

 and rounded, and about half as long again as 

 the calix tip. The berries round and black. 

 Northern Europe and Central Asia. There 

 are three forms in cultivation: — typica, two to 

 eight blossoms ; bloom-time lasts as long as, or 

 shorter than, the leaves : paucijiora bears one 

 flower or none at all ; found in Soongaria and 

 Russian Lapland: laxiflora, heads of forty blos- 



soms, lasting longer than the leaves; a plant of 

 the warmer zones of the region above men- 

 tioned, and exhibits much variety of form ac- 

 cording to conditions: (a) a growth and leaf as 

 in nigra typica; (/3) one known as C. multijiora, 

 brought from Moscow, with small, longish, 

 obtuse-shaped leaf, tipped with a deciduous 

 spine ; (y) an erect, slender shrub, growing 

 nearly 3^ feet, known as C. nummularia, or 

 multiflora, obtained from seed brought from the 



! St. Petersburg Botanic Garden. Leaves of leaf- 

 shoots ovate with terminal spine. Earlier ob- 

 servers attributed the shrub to C.acutifolia^but 



j later opinion assigns it to nigra. 



C. acutifolia (Lindley). — An upright thick 

 ' bushy shrub of medium height, the young 

 j shoots thickly and, later on, thinly haired. The 

 ] upper sides of the leaves are dark green, rather 

 i glossy and smooth, the under sides a light yel- 

 lowish-green, with hair depressed and scat- 

 tered, the-edges thickly fringed. On the leaf- 

 shoots the leaf is elliptical and slightly round 

 at the base, pointed at the end and furnished 

 with a spine ; on the flower branches the 

 leaves are much smaller, longish, slightly ellip- 

 tic at base, pointed at the ends, the under sides 

 only slightly haired on the flat surface, the 

 veins thickly or thinly covered with brownish 

 down. The blossoms, which appear in the 

 second half of May and beginning of June, are 

 a pale flesh-colour and are borne, in number 

 from two to six, on slender stalks in umbels 

 obliquely erected on the leading shoots or nod- 

 ding on the side branches. The calix is trian- 

 gular at the tips, with red points, the edges 

 thickly fringed with wool. The petals are 

 rounded, more or less wedge-shaped from the 

 base upward and about half as long again as 

 the calix. The berry is spherical, black, about a 

 third larger than that of C. nigra, and has three 

 to four stones. Native of Dahuria and Mon- 

 golia and the confines of China. Varieties are 

 — typica, upper side of leaf smooth ; pekin- 

 ensis, with dull green leaves, the upper sides 

 sprinkled with hairs ; the leaves on the leaf- 

 shoots mostly ovate with somewhat rounded 

 tips ; the calix hairy; fruit longish. This va- 

 riety is known to me only from a single speci- 

 men. The berry of this had only two stones, 

 was flat on the under side, slightly rounded 

 on the upper side, and rounded off at the base, 



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