BLUE AND PURPLE FLOWERS 
GROUP vm 
Leaves alternate. Flowers composite. 
Chicory. Succotj (Cichorium Intybus). Composite family. 
July to October. 
A familiar perennial. The showy, generally blue, flowers are 
set directly upon the stem, with long (perfect) rays, toothed at 
the end. The stem-leaves are clasping. The stout, unsymmetri- 
cal stem (about two feet) bears its blossoms not only in the 
open fields but by the dusty roads about cities. 
Blazing Star (Liatris scariosa). Composite family. 
August, September. 
A showy perennial, several feet high, from globular tuber, 
bearing (one inch) magenta-purple fiower-heads. Corolla of the 
(perfect) floret tubular, five-lobed, surrounded by bristles 
(pappus) ; styles elongated. Leaves narrow. Dry ground. 
Ironweed {Vernonia novehoracensis) . Composite family. 
July to September. 
A tall perennial with smooth stem bearing purple flower-heads, 
at the top; the (perfect) florets all tubular, bracts of involucre 
with spreading bristly appendages. The leaves are lance-shaped. 
Low ground. (From William Vernon.) 
Robin's Plantain (Erigeron pulchellus). Composite family. 
May, June. 
An upright perennial with unbranched hairy stem, rising 
from a cluster of root-leaves, itself bearing leaves; at the top 
several (one to one and one-half inch) flower-heads like asters 
(but blooming much earlier) with long, narrow, lavender, pistil- 
late ray-flowers and yellow disks of perfect, tubular flowers. 
The root-leaves are inversely egg- or spoon-shaped, somewhat 
toothed; the stem-leaves are partly clasping. Thickets, banks, 
and fields, sometimes covering large areas. 
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