Aster ericoides L.

• Authority

  Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

• Family

  Asteraceae

• Scientific Name

  Aster ericoides L.

• Description

  Species Description - Plants 3–10 dm, hairy (the hairs appressed or spreading), colonial by long creeping rhizomes, the stems arising singly; lvs numerous, linear, sessile, to 6 cm × 7 mm, the lower and often also the middle ones soon deciduous, those of the branches reduced and divaricate; heads numerous, small, commonly somewhat secund on the divergent or recurved branches; invol 3–5 mm, its bracts ± strongly imbricate, the outer obtuse or acutish, spinulose-mucronate, and ± squarrose, some of or all the bracts coarsely ciliolate-margined, and usually also short-hairy on the back; rays 8–20, white (blue or pink), 3–6 mm; disk-fls 4–15(–20); achenes sericeous-strigose; 2n=10, 20, 30. Dry, open places; s. Me. to se. Man., s. to Del., n. Va., Tenn., s. Ill., Ark., Tex., n. Mex., and se. Ariz. The closely allied, more northwestern sp. A. pansus (S. F. Blake) Cronquist, with the stems clustered on a caudex or very short rhizome, may be sought in nw. Minn.

• Common Names

  squarrose white aster