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<\/a>Blue wood aster flowers - click on photo to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n
Asters are in the sunflower or daisy family.\u00a0 What looks like individual flowers in this group are actually clusters of small flowers.\u00a0 Flowering heads of purple wood asters are bluish-lavender, with central disk flowers that turn from yellow to a reddish-purple.\u00a0 Leaves are heart-shaped with distinctive wings along the edges of the petioles, the\u00a0parts that\u00a0attach the leaf\u00a0to the plant.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Note hearted-shaped leaves with winged petioles<\/p><\/div>\n
There are several very similar species of blue asters in Central Indiana.\u00a0 They are tricky to tell apart and I think they may hybridize, making it even harder to tell what is what.<\/p>\n
Aster is such a nice, straightforward plant name, used both as a common name and a genus name.\u00a0 Unfortunately, botanists have recently rethought the nature of the genus and have largely accepted a treatment that splits Aster into several genera and puts most of Indiana\u2019s native asters in the genus Symphotrichum<\/em>.\u00a0 Thus, blue wood aster, Aster cordifolius<\/em> is now to be known as Symphotrichum cordifolium<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some of the showiest late-blooming wildflowers in our area are blue wood asters.\u00a0 They are a bit past \u00a0prime right now, but can still be seen.\u00a0 These plants like edges of woods but they do quite will in gardens.\u00a0 I … Continue reading