In dry, open woodlands, thickets, and roadsides, from August to October,
we find the dainty White Wood Aster (_A. divaricatus_)--_A. corymbosus_
of Gray--its brittle zig-zag stem two feet high or less, branching at
the top, and repeatedly forked where loose clusters of flower-heads
spread in a broad, rather flat corymb. Only a few white rays--usually
from six to nine--surround the yellow disk, whose florets soon turn
brown. Range from Canada southward to Tennessee.
The bushy little White Heath Aster (_A. ericoides_) every one must know,
possibly, as Michaelmas Daisy, Farewell Summer, White Rosemary, or
Frost-weed; for none is commoner in dry soil, throughout the eastern
United States at least. Its smooth, much-branched stem rarely reaches
three feet in height, usually it is not more than a foot tall, and its
very numerous flower-heads, white or pink tinged, barely half an inch
across, appear in such profusion from September even to December as to
transform it into a feathery mass of bloom.
Growing like branching wands of golden-rod, the Dense-flowered,
White-wreathed, or Starry Aster (_A. multiflorus_) bears its minute
flower-heads crowded close along the branches, where many small, stiff
leaves, like miniature pine needles, follow them. Each flower measures
only about a quarter of an inch across. From Maine to Georgia and Texas
westward to Arizona and British Columbia the common bushy plant lifts
its rather erect, curving, feathery branches perhaps only a foot,
sometimes above a man’s head, from August till November, in such dry,
open, sterile ground as the white Heath Aster also chooses.