BUTTON SNAKEROOT

(Lacinaria squarrosa; Liatris squarrosa of Gray) Thistle

family



Flower-heads - Composite, about 1 in. long, bright purple or rose

purple, of tubular florets only, from an involucre of

overlapping, rigid, pointed bracts; each of the few flower-heads

from the leaf axils along a slender stem in a wand-like raceme.

Stem: 1/2 to 2 ft. high. Leaves: Alternate, narrow, entire.

Preferred habitat - Dry, rich soil.

Flowering Season - June-September.

Distribution - Ontario to the Gulf of Mexico, westward to

Nebraska.



Beginning at the top, the apparently fringed flower-heads open

downward along the wand, whose length depends upon the richness

of the soil. All of the flowers are perfect and attract

long-tongued bees and flies (especially Exoprosopa fasciata) and

butterflies, which, as they sip from the corolla tube, receive

the pollen carried out and exposed on the long divisions of the

style. Some people have pretended to cure rattlesnake bites with

applications of the globular tuber of this and the next species.



The LARGE BUTTON SNAKEROOT, BLUE BLAZING STAR, or GAY FEATHER (L.

scariosa), may attain six feet, but usually not more than half

that height; and its round flower-heads normally stand well away

from the stout stem on foot-stems of their own. The bristling

scales of the involucre, often tinged with purple at the tips,

are a conspicuous feature. With much the same range and choice of

habitat as the last species, this Blazing Star is a later

bloomer, coming into flower in August, and helping the goldenrods

and asters brighten the landscape throughout the early autumn.

The name of gay feather, miscellaneously applied to several

blazing stars, is especially deserved by this showy beauty of the

family.



Unlike others of its class, the DENSE BUTTON SNAKEROOT, DEVIL'S

BIT, ROUGH or BACKACHE ROOT, PRAIRIE PINE or THROATWORT (L.

spicata), the commonest species we have, chooses moist soil, even

salt marshes near the coast, and low meadows throughout a range

nearly corresponding with that of the scaly blazing star.

Resembling its relatives in general manner of growth, we note

that its oblong involucre, rounded at the base, has blunt, not

sharply pointed, bracts; that the flower-heads are densely set

close to the wand for from four to fifteen inches; that the five

to thirteen bright rose-purple florets which compose each head

occasionally come white; that its leaves are long and very

narrow, and that October is not too late to find the plant in

bloom.





BLUE and PURPLE ASTERS or STARWORTS

Thistle family



Evolution teaches us that thistles, daisies, sunflowers, asters,

and all the triumphant horde of composites were once very

different flowers from what we see today. Through ages of natural

selection of the fittest among their ancestral types, having

finally arrived at the most successful adaptation of their

various parts to their surroundings in the whole floral kingdom,

they are now overrunning the earth. 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 rudimentary 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. Gardeners today take advantage of a blossom's

natural tendency to change stamens into petals when they wish to

produce double flowers. As flowers and insects developed side by

side, and there came to be a better and better understanding

between them of each other's requirements, 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 underside 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.

Small wonder that our June fields are white with daisies and the

autumn landscape is glorified with goldenrod and asters!



Since North America boasts the greater part of the two hundred

and fifty asters named by scientists, and as variations in many

of our common species frequently occur, the tyro need expect no

easy task in identifying every one he meets afield. However, the

following are possible acquaintances to everyone:



In dry, shady places the LARGE or BROAD-LEAVED ASTER (A.

macrophyllus), so called from its three or four conspicuous,

heart-shaped leaves on long petioles, in a clump next the ground,

may be more easily identified by these than by the pale lavender

or violet flower-heads of about sixteen rays each which crown its

reddish angular stem in August and September. The disk turns

reddish brown.



In prairie soil, especially about the edges of woods in western

New York, southward and westward to Texas and Minnesota, the

beautiful SKY-BLUE ASTER (A. azureus) blooms from August till

after frost. Its slender, stiff, rough stem branches above to

display the numerous bright blue flowers, whose ten to twenty

rays measure only about a quarter of an inch in length. The upper

leaves are reduced to small flat bracts; the next are linear; and

the lower ones, which approach a heart shape, are rough on both

sides, and may be five or six inches long.



Much more branched and bushy is the COMMON BLUE, BRANCHING, WOOD,

or HEART-LEAVED ASTER (A. cordifolius), whose generous masses of

small, pale lavender flower-heads look like a mist hanging from

one to five feet above the earth in and about the woods and shady

roadsides from September even to December in favored places.



The WAVY or VARIOUS-LEAVED ASTER or SMALL FLEABANE (A. undulatus)

has a stiff, rough, hairy, widely branching stalk, whose thick,

rough lowest leaves are heart-shaped and set on long foot-stems;

above these, the leaves have shorter stems, dilating where they

clasp the stalk; the upper leaves, lacking stems, are seated on

it, while those of the branches are shaped like tiny awls. The

flowers, which measure less than an inch across, often grow along

one side of an axis as well as in the usual raceme. Eight to

fifteen pale blue to violet rays surround the disks which, yellow

at first, become reddish brown in maturity. We find the plant in

dry soil, blooming in September and October.



By no means tardy, the LATE PURPLE ASTER, so-called, or PURPLE

DAISY (A. patens), begins to display its purplish-blue,

daisy-like flower-heads early in August, and farther north may be

found in dry, exposed places only until October. Rarely the

solitary flowers, that are an inch across or more, are a deep,

rich violet. The twenty to thirty rays which surround the disk,

curling inward to dry, expose the vase-shaped, green, shingled

cups that terminate each little branch. The thick, somewhat

rigid, oblong leaves, tapering at the tip, broaden at the base to

clasp the rough, slender stalk. Range similar to the next

species.



Certainly from Massachusetts, northern New York, and Minnesota

southward to the Gulf of Mexico one may expect to find the NEW

ENGLAND ASTER or STARWORT (A. Novae-Angliae) one of the most

striking and widely distributed of the tribe, in spite of its

local name. It is not unknown in Canada. The branching clusters

of violet or magenta-purple flower-heads, from one to two inches

across - composites containing as many as forty to fifty purple

ray florets around a multitude of perfect five-lobed, tubular,

yellow disk florets in a sticky cup - shine out with royal

splendor above the swamps, moist fields, and roadsides from

August to October. The stout, bristle-hairy stem bears a quantity

of alternate lance-shaped leaves lobed at the base where they

clasp it.



In even wetter ground we find the RED-STALKED, PURPLE-STEMMED, or

EARLY PURPLE ASTER, COCASH, SWANWEED, or MEADOW SCABISH (A.

puniceus) blooming as early as July or as late as November. Its

stout, rigid stem, bristling with rigid hairs, may reach a height

of eight feet to display the branching clusters of pale violet or

lavender flowers. The long, blade-like leaves, usually very rough

above and hairy along the midrib beneath, are seated on the stem.

The lovely SMOOTH or BLUE ASTER (A. laevis), whose sky-blue or

violet flower-heads, about one inch broad, are common through

September and October in dry soil and open woods, has strongly

clasping, oblong, tapering leaves, rough margined, but rarely

with a saw-tooth, toward the top of the stem, while those low

down on it gradually narrow into clasping wings.



In dry, sandy soil, mostly near the coast, from Massachusetts to

Delaware, grows one of the loveliest of all this beautiful clan,

the LOW, SHOWY, or SEASIDE PURPLE ASTER (A. spectabilis). The

stiff, usually unbranched stem does its best in attaining a

height of two feet. Above, the leaves are blade-like or narrowly

oblong, seated on the stem, whereas the tapering, oval basal

leaves are furnished with long footstems, as is customary with

most asters. The handsome, bright, violet-purple flower-heads,

measuring about an inch and a half across, have from fifteen to

thirty rays, or only about half as many as the familiar New

England aster. Season August to November.



The low-growing BOG ASTER (A. nemoralis), not to be confused with

the much taller Red-stalked species often found growing in the

same swamp, and having, like it, flower-heads measuring about an

inch and a half across, has rays that vary from light violet

purple to rose pink. Its oblong to lance-shaped leaves, only two

inches long at best, taper to a point at both ends, and are

seated on the stem. We look for this aster in sandy bogs from New

Jersey northward and westward during August and September.



The STIFF or SAVORY-LEAVED ASTER, SANDPAPER, or PINE STARWORT

(Ionactis linariifolius), now separated from the other asters

into a genus by itself, is a low, branching little plant with no

basal leaves, but some that are very narrow and blade-like,

rigid, entire and one-nerved, ascending the stiff stems. The

leaves along the branches are minute and awl-shaped, like those

on a branch of pine. Only from ten to fifteen violet ray flowers

(pistillate) surround the perfect disk florets. From Quebec to

the Gulf of Mexico, and westward beyond the Mississippi this prim

little shrub grows in tufts on dry or rocky soil, and blooms from

July to October.





ROBIN'S, or POOR ROBIN'S, or ROBERT'S PLANTAIN; BLUE SPRING