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 DAISY; DAISY-LEAVED FLEABANE (Erigeron pulchellus; E. bellifolium of Gray) Thistle family