Symphyotrichum laeve (Smooth blue aster)

Symphyotrichum laeve (L.) Á. Löve & D. Löve

Smooth blue aster, smooth blue American-aster

Smooth blue asters are North American natives.

Plants: 1½–3′ (50–100 cm) in height. Stems are waxy and smooth, green with a whitish covering, sometimes purple.

Leaves: Smooth, bluish in color, thick and firm, usually toothless, usually hairless, and clasping.

Flowers: Bluish to purple (rarely white), ¾–1¼″ (1.9–3.2 cm) across, appearing from August to October. Central disc flowers are yellow, aging to purple. There are 13-23 (rarely up to 11-34) rays on each flower. The appear in loose panicles

Fruits: Cypselae with pappi for wind distribution.

Habitats: Fields, praries, rocky glades, roadsides, open woods, disturbed soils.

Online References:

Ontario Wildflowers

Go Botany

Minnesota Wildflowers

The Missouri Botanical Garden

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center

Flora of North America

References:

Clemants, Steven; Gracie, Carol, Wildflowers in the Field and Forest, Oxford University Press, 2006, p. 20

Newcomb, Lawrence, Morrison, Gordon (Illus.), Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide, Little, Brown and Company, 1977, p. 460

Peterson, Roger Tory, McKenny, Margaret, Peterson Field Guides: Wildflowers—Northeastern and North Central North America, Houghton Mifflin, 1968, p. 356

9/19/2013 · Harvard, Massachusetts · ≈ 8 × 7″ (20 × 18 cm) ID is uncertain

9/19/2013 · Harvard, Massachusetts · ≈ 11 × 7″ (28 × 18 cm) ID is uncertain

Kingdom	Plantae	Plants, but not fungi, lichens, or algae (from Stearn's Botanical Latin)
Subkingdom	Tracheobionta	Vascular plants—plants with a “circulatory system” for delivering water and nutrients
Division	Magnoliophyta	Flowering plants, also known as angiosperms
Class	Magnoliopsida	Dicotyledons—plants with two initial seed leaves
Subclass	Asteridae	A large class that encompasses asters
Order	Asterales	Flowering plants with a central disk flower and surrounding petals, like daisies
Family	Asteraceae	The aster family, which also includes daisies and sunflowers; from the Greek ἀστήρ, “star,” for the star-shaped flowers
Genus	Symphyotrichum	From Greek symphysis, “borne together or growing together, coalescing,” and trichinos, “hair, a single hair”
Species	laeve	Latin laevis, “smooth”

About plant names...

Range: Zones 3-8:

About this map...

Symphyotrichum laeve description by Thomas H. Kent, not updated.