Stems very leafy, tufted or often several from a perennial root, puberulent or roughish, 6 to 24 inches high. Leaves linear or spatulate, spreading, one-nerved, stiff, entire, rough and usually ciliolate on the margins, three-fourths to 11/2 inches long, sessile, those of the branches much smaller. Heads of flowers several, terminating the branchlets, each about 1 inch broad. Bracts of the turbinate involucres linear-lanceolate, appressed, green and keeled on the back, overlapping in four or five series, the inner ones blunt, the outer ones usually pointed. Ray flowers ten to fifteen in each head, violet or rarely white, one-third to one-half of an inch long; pappus tawny, in two series, the inner with long hairlike bristles, the outer much shorter.

In dry or sandy, sometimes rocky, soil, Maine to Minnesota, south to Florida and Texas. Flowering from July to October.

Memoir 15 N. Y. State Museum

Plate 242

B. Stiff Or Savory-Leaved Aster - Ionactis linariifolius