BLUE AND PURPLE FLOWERS 
Wavy-leafed Aster (Aster undulaius). August to October. 
An aster averaging two feet high with rough stem and leaves 
variously shaped, some with hroad stalks clasping the stem, 
mostly pointed, some heart-shaped ; the edges may be wavy or 
toothed. The pale- violet flower-heads are about the size of a 
nickel, with not more than fifteen rays. Waysides. 
The abundance of the Composite under adverse conditions 
represents a survival of the fittest. Blanchan, in " Nature's 
Garden " thus happily sums it up: "Doubtless the aster's 
remote ancestors were simple green leaves around the vital 
organs, and depended upon the wind, as the grasses do — a most 
extravagant method — to transfer their pollen. Then some rudi- 
mentary flower changed its outer row of stamens into petals, 
which gradually took on color to attract insects and insure a 
more economical method of transfer. ... As flowers and 
insects developed side by side, and there came to be a better 
and better understanding between them of each other's require- 
ments, mutual adaptation followed. The flower that offered 
the best advertisement, as the composites do, by its showy rays ; 
that secreted nectar in tubular flowers where no useless insect 
could pilfer it; that fastened its stamens to the inside wall of 
the tube where they must dust with pollen the under side of 
every insect, unwittingly cross-fertilizing the blossom as he 
crawled over it; that massed a great number of these tubular 
florets together where insects might readily discover them and 
feast with the least possible loss of time, — this flower became 
the winner in life's race." 
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