LAVENDER MOUNTAIN DAISY.
Erigeron salsuginosus, Gray. Composite Family.
Stems.—A foot or two high. Radical and lower leaves.—Spatulate to nearly obovate; tapering into a margined petiole. Upper leaves.—Ovate-oblong to lanceolate; sessile. Uppermost leaves.—Small and bract-like. Flower-heads.—Solitary; large; of yellow disk-flowers and lavender rays. Disk.—Over half an inch across. Rays.—Fifty to seventy; six lines or more long; rather wide. Bracts of the involucre numerous; loosely spreading. Syn.—Aster salsuginosus, Richardson. Hab.—Sierra meadows, at an altitude of from six to ten thousand feet.
[COMMON ASTER—Aster Chamissonis.]
![[COMMON ASTER—Aster Chamissonis.]](#3624944100741987669_f129.png.id-9186072422031100910.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
Of all the beautiful flowers of the Sierras, not one lingers so fondly in the memory, after our return to the lowlands, as this exquisite lavender daisy. Late in the summer it stars the alpine meadows with its charming flowers, or stands in sociable companies on those natural velvet lawns of the mountains. It resembles the feathery, white mountain daisy, and grows in the same region; but its rays are wider and give the blossoms a somewhat more substantial look.