Lindley's Aster

Appearance

Flowers: Blue/Violet; 7 or more parts (petals); 2.5-3cm in diameter.
Ray flowers: 16, long, pale to deep blue.
Disc flowers: 20-35, yellow becoming purple. Flowers sparse in arrangement.
Symphyotrichum ciliolatum has involucral bracts with a slender, elongate chlorophyllous zone.
Leaves: Alternate, simple. Somewhat heart-shaped lower on the stem. Lance-shaped and smaller higher up on the stem, basal leaf blades that are usually truncate to subcordate, and stem leaves, when petioled, with winged petioles. Leaf margins and winged petioles with a fringe of hairs.
Height: Up to 1 m (1-3 ft)
Stem: Smooth.

Perennials, (10–)20–120 cm, colonial or cespitose; usually long-rhizomatous, sometimes with branched caudices. Stems 1–3+, erect (straight to ± flexuous), glabrate to sparsely hirsute or strigillose, especially distally. Leaves thin, margins coarsely, sharply serrate to crenate-serrate or serrulate, ciliate to scabrous, apices acute or acuminate, mucronulate, abaxial faces glabrate to sparsely hirsute, midveins usually densely hirsute, sometimes glabrous, adaxial glabrous or glabrate to scabrellous; basal usually withering by flowering (sometimes persistent on small plants), long-petiolate (petioles slightly winged, sheathing, ciliate), blades ovate, (24–)40–120(–270) × 15–70 mm, bases usually shallowly cordate, sometimes rounded; proximal cauline often withering by flowering, winged-petiolate, blades ovate to oblanceolate or lanceolate, (24–)60–150 × (10–)20–60 mm, reduced distally, bases subcordate to cuneate; distal sessile or sometimes subsessile (petioles widely-winged), blades lance-ovate to linear-lanceolate or linear, 18–75 × (2–)5–25 mm, bases cuneate, sometimes ± clasping, margins serrulate or entire. Heads [(6–)13–50(–100+)] in open, paniculiform arrays, branches ascending. Peduncles 0.2–1.5+ cm, unequal, reduced distally, ± hirsutulous, bracts 0–4, subulate or linear. Involucres campanulate, (4–)5–6.5 mm. Phyllaries in 4–5 series, narrowly oblong-lanceolate to oblong-oblanceolate or linear-oblanceolate (innermost), ± unequal, bases indurate 1 / 3 – 2 / 3 , margins narrowly scarious, erose, hyaline or infrequently purplish, sparsely ciliolate, green zones lanceolate to linear-lanceolate or linear, apices acuminate to long-acuminate, faces glabrous. Ray florets (12–)14–20; corollas pale to deep blue or bluish purple, laminae (8.3–)10–15 × 1–2.3 mm. Disc florets 14–25(–29); corollas yellow becoming reddish purple, 4.3–6.4 mm, tubes shorter than funnelform throats, lobes narrowly triangular, 0.5–1.1 mm. Cypselae yellowish white, obovoid, compressed, 1–2 mm, 5–6-nerved, faces glabrate to sparsely strigillose; pappi white to pinkish, 3–6 mm. 2n = 48.

Naming

Symphyotrichum ciliolatum (Lindley) Á. Löve & D. Löve
Aster maccallae Rydb.
Aster saundersii
Aster subgeminatus (Fernald) Boivin
Aster wilsoni
Symphyotrichum subgeminatum
Aster ciliolatus Lindley in W. J. Hooker, Fl. Bor.-Amer. 2: 9. 1834
Aster ciliolatus var. comatus (Fernald) A. G. Jones
Aster lindleyanus Torrey & A. Gray
Aster wilsonii Rydberg

Aster ciliolatus forma comatus Fernald is densely ciliolate along the midnerves and represents an extreme of the variation found in the species.

Recognized hybrids:
S. ciliolatum × S. lanceolatum
S. ciliolatum × S. laeve

Distribution

Alta., B.C., Man., N.B., Nfld. and Labr. (Nfld.), N.W.T., N.S., Ont., Que., Sask., Yukon; Ill., Maine, Mass., Mich., Minn., Mont., N.H., N.Y., N.Dak., S.Dak., Vt., Wis., Wyo.

Status

New Hampshire: rare (S-rank: S2), threatened (code: T)
Vermont: historical (S-rank: SH)
New York: Endangered-State, S1 (State Rank)

Habitat

Dry to moist deciduous, mixed, and coniferous forests, especially in clearings and along borders including adjacent roads, trails, and fields; thickets, logged and burned areas, dune ridges, rocky ground.

Reproduction

By seeds and short rhizomes