30. A. ericoìdes, L. Smooth or sparingly hairy (1--3° high); the simple branchlets or peduncles racemose along the upper side of the wand-like spreading branches; lowest leaves oblong-spatulate, sometimes toothed; the others linear-lanceolate or linear-awl-shaped; heads 3´´ high or less; involucral scales often nearly equal, with attenuate or awl-shaped green tips.--Dry open places, S. New Eng. to Minn., and southward.--Var. VILLÒSUS, Torr. & Gray, is a hairy form, often with broader leaves; chiefly in the Western States.--Var. PUSÍLLUS, Gray, is a dwarf slender and glabrous form of the barrens of Lancaster, Penn. (_Porter_), with very narrow or filiform leaves and very small few-flowered heads.--Var. PRÍNGLEI, Gray, a low strict form, with few erect branches and rather small heads. About Lake Champlain. [+][+] _Hoary-pubescent or hirsute; herbaceous tips of the involucral scales squarrose or spreading; cauline leaves small, linear, entire, scarcely narrowed at the sessile or partly clasping base; heads numerous, small, racemose._ 31. A. amethýstinus, Nutt. Tall (2--5° high), upright, much branched, puberulent or somewhat hirsute; leaves not rigid; heads 3´´ high, the tips of the scales merely spreading; rays light clear blue.--Moist grounds, E. Mass. to Ill. and Iowa. With the habit of n. 11. 32. A. multiflòrus, Ait. Pale or hoary with minute close pubescence (1° high), much branched and bushy; the heads much crowded on the spreading racemose branches; leaves rigid, crowded, spreading, with rough or ciliate margins, the uppermost passing into the spatulate obtuse scales; heads 2--3´´ long; rays white or rarely bluish, 10--20.--Dry sandy soil; common. [+][+][+] _Scales glabrous, closely imbricated (the outer regularly shorter), not coriaceous, with short appressed green tips; branches slender, divaricate or divergent; leaves lanceolate to subulate; heads small (2--3´´ high) and numerous._ [++] _Heads scattered, terminating minutely foliose slender branchlets._ 33. A. dumòsus, L. Smooth or nearly so, 1--3° high; leaves linear or the upper oblong, crowded, entire, with rough margins; scales linear spatulate, obtuse, in 4--6 rows.--Thickets; common.--A variable species, loosely branched, with small leaves, especially the upper, and an obconical or bell-shaped involucre, with more abrupt green tips than any of the succeeding. Rays pale purple or blue, larger than in n. 34. Runs into several peculiar forms. [++][++] _Heads racemosely unilateral upon very short minutely leafy branchlets._