Asteraceae

“ No cultivated specimen, of the older or the present time, is per se of any authority whatever. I am deeply mortified to tell you that, with some little exception, all my botanical work for autumn and winter has been given to Aster (after five or six months at home) , and they are not done yet! Never was there so rascally a genus! I know at length what the types of the old species are. But how to settle limits of species, I think I never shall know. There are no characters to go by in the group of Vulgar Asters; the other groups go very well. ”

“ Smooth Aster (Aster lævis) is a handsome species having a smooth, stout stem, from 2 to 4 feet high. The flowers are in lovely terminal clusters, each blossom measuring about an inch across; they are usually light violet-blue in color, although color is very variable with all the so-called blue asters; each disk is surrounded by 15 to 30 rays. The leaves are nearly smooth-edged, lanceolate, clasping the stem with a distinct heart-shaped base. The Smooth Aster is abundant from Me. to Minn. and southward, growing in dry soil and blooming in September and October. ”

“ Along the roadsides and low meadows near the coast the iron-weed adds its deep purple hues to the color-pageant of late August. By the uninitiated the plant is often mistaken for an aster, but a moment’s inspection will discover that the minute flowers which compose each flower-head are all tubular in shape, and that the ray or strap-shaped blossoms which an aster must have are wanting. These flower-heads are surrounded by an involucre composed of small scales which are tipped with a tiny point and are usually of a purplish color also. ”

“ Aster, though a Latin term, is now so generally received, that we shall make no apology for adopting it.
We are indebted to North-America for most of our Asters, but the present species, which is omitted by Miller, and is rather a scarce plant in this country, though not of modern introduction, being figured by Plukenet and described by Ray, is a native of Africa, and, like a few others, requires in the winter the shelter of a greenhouse. ”

“ In others they are made up of both kinds of flowers, as in the daisy, where only the yellow central or disk-flowers are tubular-shaped, while the white outer or ray-flowers are strap-shaped. The flower-heads of the well-known asters and golden-rods are composed of both ray and disk-flowers also; but while the ray-flowers of the aster, like those of the daisy, wear a different color from the yellow disk-flowers, both kinds are yellow in the golden-rod.
If the dandelion or the chicory (Pl. XCVIII.) is studied as an example of a head which is composed entirely of strap-shaped blossoms ”

“ Yet it must be admitted that in the majority of gardens Asters are seldom grown in sufficient numbers, and it is not unusual to find the flowers small in size and poor in colour. In many cases we believe the reason to be that the culture of Asters is often commenced too late. Preparations should therefore be made in good time, and apart from providing the requisite number of plants for filling beds and borders, and for supplying cut blooms, others should be raised for flowering in pots. ”

“ Set the wide branching asters at least a foot apart and see that all asters have clean, healthy soil to grow in to avoid the troubles that arise when conditions are unfavorable. A warm, fibrous loam, well enriched with old manure, is best and water should be given freely during dry weather, especially when the buds are forming. The black aster beetle is the only serious foe of the aster and makes its appearance when the flowers are in full bloom, doing an immense amount of damage in a few hours if not destroyed as they eat the petals of the flowers, rendering them very unsightly. ”

“ There are several kinds of Anthericum, rather small, lily-like plants, with grasslike leaves, springing from the base and surrounded by the fibrous remnants of older leaves. The slender stems are leafless, or have one, very small, dry leaf; the roots thick and fleshy-fibrous; the flowers yellow, on pedicels jointed near the middle; the style long and slender; the pod oblong, containing several flattened, angular seeds in each cell. They are common in rocky soil, at altitudes of six thousand to nine thousand feet, from western Texas to Arizona. ”

“ The taller Asters are fine to cut for vases and for pulpit bouquets, if the longest stems are chosen. Use plenty of pretty greenery, and arrange the flowers so that each stands out airily by itself, [Pg 12] not wedged between its neighbors. Asters can be over-crowded in a bouquet until heavy and clumsy looking. It is the one fault to avoid. The remedy is to use more foliage with them, and to put fewer flowers in the bouquet. Enough is better than a surplus in arranging cut-flowers.
ASTER AS A POT PLANT LEADING VARIETIES OF ASTERS
New Rose. ”

“ It seems as though Nature, after the first blush of spring, relaxed her efforts for a supreme endeavor towards the close of the floral season. Then she assumes her festal robes and the woodlands and fields become gorgeous with the purple of the Asters, the gold of the sunflowers and golden-rod, with here and there the cardinal and blue of the lobelias.
Among all this symphony of color, no plant is more lavish of its charms than the New England Aster (Aster Novae Anglae) . ”

“ If they were given high culture so as to bloom their best, and only a few of the very choicest individual flowers allowed to seed, they would of course come true from seed year after [Pg 8] year. The trouble is that home saving is generally from all the flowers as they run, culls, off-colored specimens and all. Our best Asters represent very high breeding indeed. It is well known that highly bred plants quickly run out unless kept at the same high standard. Therefore never trust to haphazard seed if you desire first class Asters. Do not depend either upon cheap seed. ”

“ Now that the leaves are gone, some of the golden-rod stems are seen to bulge as if a tiny ball were concealed under the bark. In spring a little winged tenant, a fly, will emerge from the gall that has been his cradle all winter.
Blue and Purple Asters or Starworts
Aster
Evolution teaches us that thistles, daisies, sunflowers, asters, and all the triumphant horde of composites were once very different flowers from what we see to-day. ”

“ V. Genus; VI. Species.
To illustrate: The white pine belongs to the highest great division (sub-kingdom) of the plant kingdom. The plants of this division all produce seeds, and hence are called “spermaphytes” (“seed plants”) . They may be divided into two groups (classes) , distinguished by certain peculiarities in the flowers and seeds. These are named respectively “gymnosperms” and “angiosperms,” and to the first our plant belongs. The gymnosperms may be further divided into several subordinate groups (orders) , one of which, the conifers, or cone-bearing evergreens, includes our plant. ”

“ No botanist, nor even a semi-scientific lover of growing things, like myself, can ever walk in new fields without an eye for new plants. While coming down the Cape in the train I had seen, at short intervals, clusters of some strange flower,—like yellow asters, I thought. At every station I jumped off the car and looked hurriedly for specimens, till, after three or four attempts, I found what I was seeking,—the golden aster, Chrysopsis falcata. Here in Truro it was growing everywhere, and of course in Dyer's Hollow. ”

“ There are innumerable kinds of Astragalus; most abundant in Asia, usually perennial herbs, sometimes woody; leaves usually with numerous leaflets, flowers narrow, in spikes, with long flower-stalks; calyx tube-shaped, with nearly equal teeth; petals usually narrow, with slender claws, standard erect and somewhat oblong, wings oblong, keel with blunt tip, about the same length as the wings; stamens ten, in two sets of nine and one; pods numerous, more or less two-celled, often inflated, so the wind can distribute the small seeds, therefore these plants are often called Rattleweed. ”

“ The STARWORT, Aster, is a hardy flowering plant not very attractive, except as it yields blossoms at all seasons, if the foot stalks are cut off as soon as the flower has faded, there are very numerous varieties of this plant which is, in Europe a perennial, but it is preferable to treat it here as only biennial, otherwise it degenerates. ”

“ The name is a corruption of Day’s Eye which refers to the resemblance of the yellow center and its rays to the sun and its rays. The plants grow 1-3 ft. tall in meadows, fir forests, aspen woodlands and on gravel-slides at 5000-10000 ft. and bloom in midsummer. They are beautiful enough to be given a place in the garden.
Purple Aster Machaeranthera Bigelovii Plate 38, fig. 4
The Aster differs from the Daisy in having fewer and broader ray-flowers. This Aster has purple rays and yellow disks. It grows 1-4 ft. tall in meadows and on gravel-slides at 6000-10000 ft. and blooms in midsummer. ”

“ They are valuable plants in a garden, the various species flowering from late summer right on to November or December. The only British species is Aster Tripolium, found abundantly in saline marshes near the sea. One of the species, Aster alpinus, grows at a considerable height on the mountains of Europe. Some of them, such as Aster spectabilis of North America, are very showy. They are mostly easy to cultivate in ordinary garden soil, and are readily propagated by dividing the roots in early spring. The following are some of the better known forms:—A. alpinus, barely 1 ft. ”

“ The essentials of flowers are stamens and pistils, giving rise to seeds, and the essential of a seed is an embryo (8) . Cryptogamous or Flowerless plants are propagated by Spores; and a spore is not an embryo-plantlet, but mostly a single plant-cell (399) .
483. Vascular Cryptogams, which compose the higher orders of this series of plants, have stems and (usually) leaves, constructed upon the general plan of ordinary plants; that is, they have wood (wood-cells and vessels, 408) in the stem and leaves, in the latter as a frame work of veins. ”

“ When white wood sinks the reason will be the narrowness of the ducts and the presence of superfluous moisture, which blocks up the ducts so that the air does not enter; consequently it sinks. Every flower is composed only of rarefied material when the assimilation first begins; and so the flower generally precedes the fruit in plants. We have already shown why it is that plants produce their leaves before their fruits. In the case of plants which have slender parts the colour of the flower will resemble a bright blue ”

“ For indoor decoration full use is rarely ever made of Asters, although the colours include many delightful shades which may be employed with most telling effect.
To secure a long-continued display of bloom there must be several sowings, and the earliest will need the aid of artificial heat. One secret of successful culture is to give no check to the plant from its first appearance until the time of flowering; and a suitable bed must be prepared, whether the seed be sown on the spot or plants are transferred from other quarters. ”

“ The alternation of generations is as distinct in this Division as in the Mosses, but the sexual generation consists of only a small thallus, the prothallium, which bears directly the sexual organs, antheridia and archegonia; and the asexual generation, which arises from the fertilisation of the oosphere, is no longer a single short-lived sporangium, but a highly developed, generally perennial, plant provided with stem, leaves and true roots (Ferns, Horsetails, etc.) , the sporangia being borne on the leaves. ”

“ Weeds, broad–leaved Sea Lavender, and other vigorous kinds, the Globe Thistles, Acanthuses, the free–flowering Yuccas, such as Y. flaccida and Y. filamentosa, the common Artichoke, with its noble flowers; and in autumn, a host of the Golden Rods and Michaelmas Daisies. These are so common in America that adding them to the wild garden would probably be considered a needless labour; but the substitution of the various really beautiful species of aster for those commonly found and of inferior beauty would well repay. ”

“ From fine strains of Asters you may save seed that will give good results the first year, but flowers grown from seed saved from these will show more or less centre, so that fresh seed should be purchased every other year at least. As the bees do not visit the Asters so assiduously as other flowers, they are less given to hybridisation and come quite true from seed; the trouble with them being deterioration. The first flower on the plant is usually the best, and should be reserved for seed by tying a string around it and labelling 44it, if it is desired to keep the varieties separate. ”

“ Then its endless variations of form, its astonishing oddities, its wide range of hues, its easy culture, its readiness to hybridize and to ripen seed, the certainty, by comparison, of rearing the proceeds, each of these merits appeals to one or other of orchid-growers. Many of the species which come from torrid lands, indeed, are troublesome, but with such we are not concerned. The cool varieties will do well anywhere, provided they receive water enough in summer, and not too little in winter. ”

“ Aster. Composite Family (p. 13) . Flower-heads.—Composed of white ray-flowers with a centre of yellow disk-flowers.
While we have far fewer species of white than of blue or purple asters, some of these few are so abundant in individuals as to hold their own fairly well against their bright-hued rivals.
The slender zigzag stems, thin, coarsely toothed, heart-shaped leaves, and white, loosely clustered flower-heads of A. corymbosus, are noticeable along the shaded roadsides and in the open woods of August. ”