Liatris punctata Hook.
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Authority
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.
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Family
Asteraceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Species Description - Rootstock (unlike all our other spp.) ± elongate and pointed at the base, like a short, fleshy-thickened taproot, or seldom horizontal and resembling a thickened rhizome, producing scattered aerial stems; lvs numerous, punctate, glabrous except for the often coarsely ciliate margins, linear or linear-oblanceolate, the lowest smaller than those just above and often deciduous; heads several or many in a spiciform infl, sessile or nearly so; invol subcylindric, 10–18 mm, its bracts punctate, mostly sharply- mucronate-acuminate, commonly some of them ± ciliate-margined; fls mostly 4–6 per head, the cor- lobes glabrous, the tube hairy toward the base within; pappus evidently plumose; 2n=20. Dry, open places, often in sandy soil; sw. Mich. to Man., Alta., Ark., N.M., and n. Mex. Aug.–Oct. Highly variable, and perhaps taxonomically divisible. (L. angustifolia; L. densispicata) Our common phase is var. nebraskana Gaiser, to 8 dm, with scarcely ciliate lvs mostly 2–3 mm wide. The chiefly more western var. punctata is 1–4 dm, with more ciliate lvs to 7 mm wide.