This week: 3 Volunteer White-Flowered Asters
Hello!
While walking my dog the other day, I passed three varieties of little white asters blooming along the street. All three were volunteer plants (or weeds, depending on your outlook), and all are native to the eastern half of the United States. I confess to removing these plants from my own gardens—and especially my front yard—for aesthetic purposes, but if I were managing a meadow or had a woodland border, I’d invite them to stay. Who can turn down a free, earth-friendly plant, especially when asters support specialized bees?
Calico Aster
Symphyotrichum lateriflorum, or Calico Aster, is one of the easiest wild asters to identify—it has countless tiny flowers under a half-inch in diameter, if not smaller. It has a sprawling, leaning habit, and as the flowers mature, they take on a pinkish-purple cast. It prefers a partly shaded setting and is a food source for beneficial insects, birds, deer, and rabbits.
Hairy Oldfield Aster
Hairy Oldfield Aster (Symphyotrichum pilosum) can also be spotted in a crowd because, as the common name suggests, it has noticeably fuzzy stems. The stems are also stiff and tall, which helps it stand out along roadsides. It also has little white flowers slightly larger than a half-inch. This full-sun plant doesn’t mind dry conditions and sometimes goes by Heath Aster, a more fetching name.
Small White Aster
At some point, you encounter a little white aster flower that exhausts all your plant ID apps and drives you to your paper field guide for identification. This aster, for me, is Symphyotrichum racemosum, or Small White Aster (probably…). This aster looks a lot like all the other asters, except it has half-inch flowers, though some are a little bigger and some are smaller. It also has “obscurely toothed” or entire (smooth) leaf edges that slightly clasp the stem.
The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center felt my pain because their plant description mainly consisted of the following: “The many small-flowered asters found in eastern North America are often difficult to distinguish from one another, as are many of the large-flowered species.”
Take a little time this week to notice if any of these little white asters are in your habitat!
Elsewhere:
Book recommendation time! Groundcover Revolution by Kathy Jentz is among my favorite books of the year because she digs into low-growing plants that can be used to carpet spaces. Although all her recommendations are not native, she notes the ones that are and avoids invasives. Start with this book if you’re hunting for a “not grass” and “not a meadow” solution for your yard.
Have a great week,
Julie