Formerly Aster latiflorus (-us instead of –um because Aster is masculine). These are the asters with tiny flower heads, often hundreds of them thickly covering the whole plant, that you see everywhere at the edges of lawns, in sidewalk cracks, and popping out from under hedges. Calico Asters (as we mentioned once before) are quite variable. “Consists of many races,” say Britton & Brown of this species, “differing in leaf-form, inflorescence and pubescence.” “Extensively variable,” says Gray. In other words, asters thumb their noses at the notion of a “species.” These are worth looking at with a magnifying glass: the disk flowers (the ones that make up the center of the flower head) look like little starfish, changing from pale translucent yellow through pink to deep rose. Flowers at all stages are on the plant at once, giving it the calico effect for which it is named.
The American members of the genus Aster have been moved to the genus Symphyotrichum, and we hope they like it there. This is our showiest Aster, and the pink form is fairly rare; Gray would make it var. roseus (which, in the neuter genus Symphyotrichum instead of the masculine Aster, would be var. roseum). We also have pictures of the usual purple form and the very rare white form.
Gray describes the genus Aster (where all North American species of Symphyotrichum lived until recently) and the species:
ASTER [Tourn.] L. STAR-WORT, FROST-FLOWER, ASTER. Heads many-flowered, radiate; the ray-flowers in a single series, fertile. Bracts of the involucre more or less imbricated, usually with herbaceous or leaf-like tips. Receptacle flat, alveolate. Achenes more or less flattened; pappus simple, of capillary bristles (double in 4 and 5). Perennial herbs (annual only in 7 and 8), with corymbed, panicled, or racemose heads, flowering chiefly in autumn. Rays white, purple, blue, or pink; the disk yellow, often changing to purple. Species often without sharply defined limits, freely hybridizing. (Name aster, a star, from the radiate heads of flowers.)
A. nòvae-ángliae L. Stem stout, hairy, 0.5-2.6 m. high, corymbed at the summit; leaves numerous, lanceolate, entire, acute, auriculate-clasping, 930. A. oblongifolius. clothed with minute pubescence, 0.5- 1 dm. long; bracts nearly equal, linear-awl-shaped, loose, glandular-viscid, as well as the branchlets; rays violet-purple, rarely white, very numerous; achenes hairy. Moist chiefly calcareous grounds, centr. Me. to w. Que., westw. and south w. Aug.-Oct. Heads large ; a very handsome species, popular in cultivation. (Escaped from gardens, and locally naturalized in Eu.) FIG. 931. Var. róseus (Desf.) DC. Rays pink or rose-color. Range of the typical form, local.
The pure white form is by far the more common; we have recently seen a beautiful bicolor, but the pure white is as elegant as a wedding gown. We may curse this weed when it invades our hedges and gardens, but even the most heartlessly intolerant gardener probably sneaks an admiring look at the flowers when no one is paying attention. These flowers were blooming in a little patch of dirt along Carson Street in the middle of the South Side.
Gray makes Calystegia (which he apparently named) a division of the genus Convolvulus. He describes the genus, division, and species:
CONVOLVULUS [Tourn.] L. BINDWEED. Corolla funnel-form to campanulate. Stamens included. Capsule globose, 2-celled, or imperfectly 4-celled by spurious partitions between the 2 seeds, or by abortion 1-celled, mostly 2-4-valved. Herbs or somewhat shrubby plants, twining, erect, or prostrate. (Name from convolvere, to entwine.)
CALYSTEGIA (R. Br.) Gray. Stigmas oval to oblong; calyx inclosed in 2 broad leafy bracts.
C. sepium L. (HEDGE B.) Glabrous or essentially so; stem high-twining or sometimes trailing extensively; leaves triangular-halberd-shaped, acute or pointed, the basal lobes obliquely truncate and often somewhat toothed or sinuate-lobed or merely rounded; peduncles chiefly elongated, 4-angled; bracts rounded to sharp-acuminate at tip; corolla white or rose-color, 3-5 cm. long. (Including var. americanus Sims.) Moist alluvial soil or along streams. June-Sept. (Eurasia.)
These two pictures, from the same patch on the South Side as the ones that appeared here yesterday, seemed worth adding to the collection. The one above gives us a close view of the inflorescence (click to make it even bigger), which might help any botanical enthusiasts give us a better identification if indeed Father Pitt is wrong about this being Amaranthus hypochondriacus.
A large and vigorous patch of these amaranths was happily blooming from sidewalk cracks and other unlikely footholds around a little rowhouse on the South Side. Closely related species of Amaranthus are notoriously hard to distinguish, and botanists disagree on the classification; Gray regards Amaranthus hypochondriacus as a form of Amaranthus hybridus. Any reader who can do a better job of identifying these plants is encouraged to do so, even begged to do so. At any rate, it is a striking flower, closely related to the garden favorite Love-Lies-Bleeding (Amaranthus caudatus). As distinguishing features of this plant, note the numerous flower stalks from leaf axils up and down the stem, the long petioles (about the length of the leaves), and the thickish inflorescences with a habit of sagging.
