Native. Perennial. Propagates by seeds and off-sets.

Time of bloom: April to June.

Seed-time: May to July.

Range: Nova Scotia to Ontario and Minnesota, southward to Florida and Louisiana. Habitat: Hillsides, woodland borders, moist banks.

Stems slender, simple, softly hairy, ten to twenty inches tall. Base-leaves tufted, spatulate or long obovate, obtuse, softly hairy on both sides, with a few shallow teeth, and tapering to short-margined petioles; stem-leaves small, distant, narrow-ovate to lance-shaped, sessile or partly clasping, usually entire. Heads few, in a terminal cluster, each an inch or more broad, with many narrow purple rays varying from pale lilac to deep violet; disk broad and flat, greenish yellow, its florets perfect. Achenes flattened, nearly smooth, with pappus of a single row of fine hairs.

Fig. 302. -Purple-stemmed Aster (Aster pu-niceus). X 1/4.

Means Of Control

This weed is at once suppressed by cultivation of the ground; but where that is not practicable or desirable, the plant may be destroyed by hoe-cutting below the crown.