1875.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
385 
cies, growing from Newfoundland to the Rocky 
Mountains, and is very common in wet grounds 
in all the northern states. A well formed 
specimen is quite as handsome as many shrubs 
which find a place in the garden. The chief 
interest attaching to the plant is that it is in 
some localities disposed to become a weed. 
what has been often said before, that mowing 
or otherwise cutting off the tops will, if per¬ 
sisted in, finally subdue the most obstinate of 
weeds, and that there is no specific, no applica¬ 
tion other than hard work, which will get rid 
of them. We presume that the calling of this 
plant “ Hardback,” must be very local, and we 
not an Aster at all. Sutherland in his work 
on Hardy Heibaceous Plants, calls it “Blue 
Stokesia,” a name which seems preferable to 
the other. “ But why go to English authorities 
for the names of American plants? ’’ —some very 
patriotic individual may inquire. Because the 
English have enterprise enough to send over 
Last year “Hardback” was mentioned as 
troublesome in New England, which we 
thought rather strange, but when it was said to 
have yellow flowers, it was evident that the 
true Hardback was not the plant in question, 
as that has dense spikes of pretty rose-colored 
flowers. At last some of the troublesome 
“ Hardback” was sent to Dr. Vasey, at the De¬ 
partment of Agriculture, who at once saw that 
it was the Shrubby Cinque-foil, the plant here 
figured. It appears that the plant spreads very 
rapidly in moist land, and unless checked, will 
take complete possession of a pasture, and soon 
render it worthless by choking out and starving 
the grass. It has been especially destructive 
in some parts of Connecticut. Weeds of this 
character—those with perennial roots—are very 
difficult to eradicate when once they have pos¬ 
session, hence it is important that they be 
checked on their first appearance. Much of 
the trouble with weeds arises from the fact 
that cultivators do not know their most dan¬ 
gerous enemies when they see them, and we 
have known a comparatively innocent plant to 
be regarded as mischievous, while the real in¬ 
truder was growing unmolested. Hence, in 
publishing the portrait of a weed, we do the 
readers of the American Agriculturist even a 
better service than we do in illustrating plants 
worthy of cultivation. It is well to repeat here 
hope it may not reach beyond its present lim¬ 
its. The present is an illustration of the im¬ 
portance of accuracy and uniformity in the 
common names of plants, and we hope that the 
officers of the State Board of Agriculture in 
Connecticut, who sent the plant to Washing¬ 
ton as Hardhack, will do what may be in their 
power to correct this misapplication of a well- 
known name, and insist upon its being called 
by its proper name, Shrubby Cinquefoil. 
- — i a i — - 
The Blue Stokesia. 
In our attempts to popularize our native 
plants, and to introduce them into gardens, we 
have generally called attention to those which 
were comparatively common and readily pro¬ 
cured. This time we describe one of the most 
beautiful, as well as one of the rarest plants in 
the country, Stokesia cyanus , the Blue Stokesia. 
We endeavor to preserve uniformity in the 
common names of plants, and when a name is 
well established, do not often alter it, how¬ 
ever inappropriate it may be. Mr. Robinson 
in his hardy flowers calls the plant “ Stokes’ 
Aster,” a name that we do not think it desira¬ 
ble to perpetuate, as it is very far from being an 
Aster in its botanical characters, though it has 
something the aspect of a China-Aster, which is 
here and get our good things and cultivate them 
and make them known to the rest of the world.. 
Priority of publication establishes a name in hor¬ 
ticulture and in botany unless there are very 
good reasons for setting it aside; Robinson’s 
and Sutherland’s works were both published the 
same year, and we are not troubled by the ques¬ 
tion of priority, but select which of the two' 
seems preferable. So much for the name, which 
by the way we may say was, so far as the generic 
name Stokesia goes, given in honor of Dr. 
Jonathan Stokes, an English botanist of the 
last century. The plant, as the engraving 
shows, belongs to the composite family, and is 
included in a small tribe of which the well- 
known “ Iron-weed,” ( Vernonid), is the most 
common representative. It is a perennial 
herb with branching downy stems, growing 
from one to two feet high. The leaves are en¬ 
tire, the lower petroled and the upper sessile, 
and fringed at the base. The flowers at the 
ends of the branches are in large heads with 
something the appearance of those of a Cen- 
taurea, or Star-thistle, figured just a year ago., 
(Oct. 1874, p. 381); the heads have numerous 
leafy bracts at the base which are fringed with 
spines on the margin, as seen in the bud in the 
engraving; the head of flowers when well 
opened is three or four inches across, and made 
up of numerous florets, those on the margin 
