Aster

  • Authority

    Britton, Nathaniel L. & Millspaugh, Charles F. 1920. The Bahama Flora.

  • Family

    Asteraceae

  • Scientific Name

    Aster

  • Description

    Description - Perennial or rarely annual, mostly branching herbs, with alternate leaves, and corymbose or paniculate (rarely racemose or solitary) heads of both tubular and radiate flowers. Involucre hemispheric, campanulate or turbinate, its bracts various, imbricated in several series, the exterior usually smaller and shorter. Receptacle flat or convex, generally foveolate. Ray-flowers white, pink, purple, blue, or violet, pistillate. Disk-flowers tubular, perfect, their corollas 5-lobed, usually yellow and changing to red, brown, or purple. Anthers obtuse and entire at the base. Style-branches flattened, their appendages subulate, lanceolate or ovate, acute. Pappus-bristles slender, numerous, scabrous or denticulate, usually in 1 series, sometimes in 2 series. Achenes mostly flattened and nerved. [Greek, star.] A genus of not less than 250 species, most abundant in North America. Type species: Aster Amellus L.