![]() The stem is branching with alternately attached leaves. Their stem is usually hairless but will sometimes have sparse white hairs. The inner yellow to golden disk florets are surrounded by those signature purple to deep violet ray florets we all know and love!Ĭredit: The Cosmonaut and davecz2, both courtesy Wikimedia Commons.Ĭommon blue wood aster( Symphyotrichum cordifolium):Ĭommon blue wood asters prefer to live in woods and thickets. Leaves are lance-shaped and clasping (meaning the leaf base partially surrounds the stem). They have hairy stems with alternately attached leaves. You’ll find New England asters in fields, damp meadows, and shoreline habitat. New England aster ( Symphyotrichum novae-angliae): In this explanation, we will mention the color variations of both! It’s important to note the size of the plant and to observe the leaves on the entire length of the plant! Additionally, American asters have composite flowers, meaning their flower heads are an amalgamation of many disk (reproductive flowers that make up the central circle of American aster flower heads) and ray flowers (the petal-looking flowers on the edges that attract pollinators). In this post, we will go over identifying characteristics of our 5 most common American asters: New England aster ( Symphyotrichum novae-angliae), common blue wood aster( Symphyotrichum cordifolium), calico aster ( Symphyotrichum lateriflorum), smooth blue aster ( Symphyotrichum laeve), and hairy white oldfield aster ( Symphyotrichum pilosum).Īmerican aster leaves get smaller from the base to the top of the plant and leaf shape can vary along the plant’s height. Ohio is home to about 30 American aster species, 13 of which have been documented in the park. The largest genus from these splits is our American aster genus, Symphyotrichum, which contains asters from both North and South America. However, scientists have recently split Aster into multiple smaller genuses. As a side note, you may know these species as members of the Aster genus. We are talking about the American aster genus, * Symphyotrichum*. To be clear, we are not talking about the entire Aster family, Asteraceae. Asters are arguably one of our most precious fall wildflowers in Ohio. This week, we noticed that our beloved asters are beginning to bloom in Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Specific epithet is a combination of the Latin words for side and flower in reference to the fact that the flowers of this species generally are located on one side of the stems, hence the sometimes used common name of side-flowering aster.Happy Monday iNatters! Hopefully your weekend has left you refreshed, reinvigorated. Genus name comes from the Greek symph meaning coming together and trich meaning hair in possible reference to the flower anthers. Leaves significantly decrease in size as they ascend the stems. Lower leaves grow to 1 1/2” wide by 6” long. Long horizontal branches spread out from the main stem, each being clad with rough, narrow, lanceolate, dark green leaves with toothed margins. ![]() ![]() ![]() Each flower has 8-15 white to purple-tinged rays which surround a central disc of 8-16 tiny tubular disk flowers which mature to purplish-red. Small white flowers (each to 1/2” across) bloom in clusters along the branches from mid/late August into October. It is commonly found throughout most of Missouri. It is native from Quebec to Ontario and Minnesota south to Florida and Texas where it is commonly found in a variety of habitats primarily including forest margins, stream borders, low wet woods, meadows, wet depressions of prairies and roadsides. Aster lateriflorus is a former name and synonym for this plant which has now been reclassified from genus Aster to genus Symphyotrichum but with retention of its various aster common names. Symphyotrichum lateriflorum, commonly known as calico aster, side-flowering aster, starved aster or white woodland aster, is an herbaceous, somewhat bushy perennial that typically grows to 2-3’ tall with a slightly smaller spread. ![]()
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