Northern Blazing Star, New England Blazing Star, Liatris borealis, Naturalized Minnesota Wildflower plant, Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden

	Plants of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden
	Common Name	Scientific Name	Plant Family	Garden Location	Prime Season
	Northern Blazing Star	Liatris scariosa (L.) Willd. var. novae-angliae Lunell [Old = Liatris borealis]	Aster (Asteraceae)	Upland	Late Summer to Autumn
Other names and notes	(New England Blazing Star). Blazing Stars of the Liatris genus have general characteristics of: Stem leaves narrow and lance shaped, the flower heads appear on a spike. Heads may be composed of 5 to 60 small tubular 5-lobed purple flowers. The flower heads of Northern Blazing Star are button shaped, 3/4" to 1", not more than 1 1/2 times as long as wide and with a noticeable stalk. Flowers are rose-purple with up to 100 in a head. The protruding styles of the flower are forked and give a feathery appearance A stem can have 3 to 60 heads. Leaves are narrow and entire and not dense on the stem.




Above and below: Flowers of early to mid-August. Below center: Seed heads of late September.

Below: The small 5-part flowers just beginning to open on this flower head.

Notes: This variety is not native to Minnesota. As the common name implies it is native to the New England States. However, in 1908 and 1910 Eloise Butler recorded planting this species, obtained from her foraging area at what is now the Minnehaha Park area of Minneapolis. She noted it was L. scariosa, but as there are no records of this plant being collected in MN she may have misidentified it. However, on April 30, 1912, she recorded planting specimens obtained from Horsford's Nursery, Charlotte VT. After that it does not appear on the later Garden Census' of 1951 and 1986 but is present on the 2009 Census.

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References: Plant characteristics are generally from sources 15, 16, 30, 31, 33, W2 & W3. Distribution principally from W2 and also 31, 34 and W1. Planting history generally from 1, 4 & 4a. Other sources by specific reference. See Reference List for details.

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