The Urban Pantheist

Blue wood aster (Heart-leaf aster) Symphyotrichum cordifolium

In late September my deliberate neglect of the yard bears fruit. Tall rangy weeds in the shady corners and other places finally burst forth with bluish daisy-like flowers. This year one plant came up right in front of a frequently used gate--it took all of our collective patience not to pull the darned thing, but now it's made the transformation from weed to wildflower.


The side of the yard under the white pines is especially thick with blue wood asters.


Insects have eaten the foliage so thoroughly that it took me a while to find a heart-shaped leaf that was intact.

This species appeared on this blog as 365 urban species #269: Heart-leaf Aster.

I believe this small white aster is Symphyotrichum racemosum or the "small white aster."



This beggartick was totally under water a few days ago.
(I'm not calling Charlie a bad name, that's what the weed behind him is called.)

Photos by cottonmanifesto. Location: Brookline Ave, Boston.

Urban species #269: Heart-leaf aster Symphyotrichum cordifolium

In New England the last of the wildflowers are blooming. The asters as much as the changing leaves signal the arrival of autumn. In the city we have plantings of New England aster, Symphyotrichum novae-angliae and New York aster ,Symphyotrichum novi-belgii, tall shrublike plants with relatively large purple flowers. By comparison heart-leaf aster is scrawny and weedy, but like all weeds it has the dignity of wildness. It "chose" to grow along the roads, and on the edges of the wooded park. It doesn't ask to be watered, or for human hands to remove its competitors--no one "weeds" for the weeds.

Older field guides, and even some contemporary sources, use the genus name Aster for most of the asters, which seems logical. As it turns out, the huge and complicated family Asteraceae gets more huge and complicated all the time. Now it is more accepted to only use the genus name Aster for certain species native to Eurasia and their close relatives, while ten other genus names have split off. The generic term "aster" is still in common usage, and well it should be. Otherwise, shall we sing the praises of the autumn blooming symphyotrichum? Let's not.

Heart-leaf aster is also known as blue wood aster. The last of this years'
butterflies will feed on this flower's nectar, before they migrate or expire. When the plant dries away, it will continue to stand, holding its seeds up to offer to the arriving juncos and redpolls.

Beaming with regional pride, I found what I thought was New England Aster; I tried to identify it, and thought for one shocking moment that it was New York Aster! Then I looked into the field guide again and realized it could be any of a number of asters. If anyone can recognize it from these photos, I wouldn't care where it was from, I'd just be grateful.



The field marks are pretty hard to distinguish, I realize. I'm happy to call it an unidentified aster.