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Blazing Star

Liatris scariosa. Composite Family.

Stem.--Simple; stout; hoary; two to five feet high. Leaves.--Alternate; narrowly lance--shaped. Flower--heads.--Racemed along the upper part of the stem; composed entirely of tubular flowers of a beautiful shade of rose--purple.

These showy and beautiful flowers lend still another tint to the many--hued salt marshes and glowing inland meadows of the falling year. Gray assigns them to dry localities from New England to Minnesota and southward, while my own experience of them is limited to the New England coast, where their stout leafy stems and bright-hued blossoms are noticeable among the golden--rods and asters of September. The hasty observer sometimes confuses the plant with the iron--weed, but the two flowers are very different in color and in their manner of growth.