§ 3. ASTER proper. _Scales imbricated in various degrees, with herbaceous or leaf-like summits, or the outer entirely foliaceous; rays numerous; pappus simple, soft and nearly uniform (coarser and more rigid in the first group); achenes flattened._ (All flowering late in summer or in autumn.) [*] 1. _Scales well imbricated, coriaceous, with short herbaceous mostly obtuse spreading tips; pappus of rigid bristles; stem-leaves all sessile, none heart-shaped or clasping; heads few, or when several corymbose, large and showy._ [+] _Lowest leaves ovate or ovate-oblong, some rounded or subcordate at base._ 4. A. Hervèyi, Gray. Slightly scabrous, 1--2° high, the summit and peduncles glandular-puberulent; leaves roughish, obscurely serrate, the lower ovate on nearly naked petioles, the upper lanceolate; heads loosely corymbose, ½´ high; involucre nearly hemispherical, the scales obscurely glandular, all erect, with very short or indistinct green tips; rays violet, ½´ long.--Borders of oak woods, in rather moist soil, E. Mass, and R. I.; Mt. Desert. An ambiguous species, approaching the last. [+][+] _Radical leaves all tapering into margined petioles; involucres squarrose (hardly so in n. 8); rootstocks slender._ 5. A. spectábilis, Ait. Stems 1--2° high, roughish and glandular-puberulent above; leaves oblong-lanceolate, or the lower spatulate-oblong, obscurely serrate or the upper entire; heads few, hemispherical, ½´ high; _scales glandular-puberulent and viscid_; mostly with the _upper half herbaceous and spreading_; rays about 20, bright violet, nearly 1´ long.--sandy soil, Mass. to Del., near the coast, and perhaps southward. Sept.--Nov. One of the handsomest species of the genus. 6. A. surculòsus, Michx. Stems 1° high or less, _from long filiform rootstocks; leaves entire_ or nearly so, _rigid_, lanceolate or the upper linear; _heads_ few or solitary, as in the last but generally _smaller_, the _scales hardly glandular_.--Moist ground, coast of N. J., and southward. 7. A. grácilis, Nutt. Rootstocks occasionally tuberous-thickened; stems slender, 1° high; leaves oblong-lanceolate, entire or nearly so, small (1--2´ long); heads few or several; involucre top-shaped, 3--4´´ long, glabrous, not glandular nor viscid, the _coriaceous whitish scales with very short deltoid or ovate tips_; rays 9--12, 3--6´´ long.--Pine barrens, N. J. to N. C., E. Ky. and Tenn.