BLUE AND PURPLE FLOWERS 
Starved Aster. CaUco Aster {Aster lateriflorus) . August 
to October. 
An aster averaging three feet in height, with dark-red stem 
and widely spreading branches which bear, generally on one 
side and with short stalks, many small asters (less than one-half 
inch in width) with short light-purple or whitish rays and purplish 
centres. Leaves broadly lance-shaped, toothed, practically 
without stalks. Open places and thin woods. 
Late Purple Aster. Spreading Aster {Aster patens). 
August to October. 
A common species in open places, its rough stem having a 
maximum height of three feet. The heads are about the size 
of a quarter, each at the end of a branch. The nch purple 
rays average twenty-five. The leaves are somewhat lance- 
shaped heart-shaped at base and clasping, without teeth, the 
leaves on the branches much smaller. The tips of the involucre- 
bracts are spreading. Dry ground. 
Purple-stemmed Aster {Aster puniceus). July to October. 
An aster sometimes six feet high or more with curving, rough- 
hairy stem of reddish tint. The flowers, an inch to an mch and 
a half across, are loosely clustered at the top, and have twenty 
or thirty Hght-purple rays. The leaves are lance-shaped, clasp- 
ing at base, generally toothed, rough on the upper side. This 
coarse but noticeable aster is common in the woods and by 
the roadsides, especially in damp ground, from Nova Scotia to 
the Middle West, south to Virginia. 
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