Plants of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden

New England Aster is a showy native, erect, perennial aster with stout stems reaching up to 6 feet high. Stems and branches are light brown to dark brown to purplish in color and are usually covered with short white bristly hair. The main stem branches profusely near the top.

The leaves are alternate, oblong, stiff but thin, mostly entire, with hairy edges and clasp the stem tightly with rounded lobes. The leaf underside has fine hair with longer hair on the mid-vein. Within the floral array leaves are reduced in size and lower leaves toward the bottom of the stem, which are larger, usually drop by flowering time.

The floral array is a branched panicle atop the stems. These clusters are leafy and crowded with stalked flowers.

Flowers: The are 3/4 to 1 1/2 inches wide and composed of two types of florets. The outer ray florets can be reddish-purple, rose, violet or sometimes white, with numerous rays, 50 to 75+. These are pistillate and fertile. These surround the tubular central disc florets which number 50 to 110, have a yellow corolla tube with 5 pointed lobes, turning reddish-purple at maturity like most asters of this genus. These florets are bisexual and fertile. They open from the outside of the disc to the center. Anthers of the stamens are yellow, with the five filaments appressed around the single style, which has appendages at its tip. The style is exserted from the corolla throat when the floret opens. The flower stalk has green bracts called, calyculi, that have short hair and glandular hair. These bracts grade upward into 3 to 5 series of linear, glandular-hairy dark green to purple tinged phyllaries, which surround the florets and which tend to spread outward at their tips.

Seed (Cypsela): Fertile flowers produce a dry 7 to 10 nerved cypsela which has a tawny color pappus attached for wind dispersion. These seeds are light - 66,000 to the ounce and require 60 days of cold stratification for germination.

Types: In the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden flowers with purplish and rose ray flowers exist. Most of the rose ones are found at the eastern side of the Upland Garden.

Habitat: New England Aster grows from short rhizomes and fibrous roots and forms thick woody branched caudices. Full sun is preferred with well drained upland soils and moist to moderate moisture. Like all asters, this one is susceptible to stem rot if kept too wet. There can also be some leaf mildew if air circulation is not good in damp weather. Cultivars of this species are readily available in the nursery trade for home garden use. In the home garden, the native variety can reach seven feet in height whereas certain cultivars such as "Purple Dome" can be dwarf size. Seed gathered in the fall can be immediately planted, but if held for spring planting it must be cold-stratified. The plant is not invasive but will self seed.

Names: An older scientific name for this species is Aster novae-angliae. The species name novae-angliae, means "of New England". Botanists have re-classified this plant and other new world asters, many into the genus Symphyotrichum. The genus name is from the Greek symphysis, for 'junction', and 'trichos', for hair and, while obscure, it was first applied by Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck in the 1800s in describing the type aster for the genus. The author names for the plant classification are: First to classify was '(L.)' which refers to Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), Swedish botanist and the developer of the binomial nomenclature of modern taxonomy. His work was amended by ‘G. L. Nesom’ which is for Guy L. Nesom (b. 1945) American botanist who has published papers on the nomenclature of asters.

Comparisons: The large purple or rose tinted ray flowers on a plant where the leaves are short and clasp the stem, make this aster easy to identify. Sometimes the coloration of Purplestem Aster (Symphyotrichum puniceum) is similar to the purple ray florets here, but that species has longer leaves, far fewer ray florets and prefers marshy soil.