Friday Fabulous Flower - Aster?

Another weekend that was too busy for words, other than maybe yikes!  Sorry FFF gets so easily put off.  While TPP is sort of on a composite kick, it is that time of year.  But at least this isn't another SYC.  Technically this isn't an Aster, which is now about 200 species strong but entirely restricted to Eurasia.  So if the plant is native to the Americas, and was formerly as Aster, it is now placed in a new genus; there are several.  This plant always flowers in the fall, and it does well in some semi-shady locations.  The flower heads (remember they are inflorescences) are small at about 1 cm in diameter, but they are numerous.  The ray flowers are white while the disk flowers start out yellow and then change to red as they transition from dispersing pollen to accepting pollen (TPP isn't sure why).  But it makes for a rather nice display, especially from close range.  Generally this particular species, Eurybia divaricata, is called the white woodland aster (formerly Aster divaricatum) (note the change in gender of the specific epithet).  

Friday Fabulous Flower - Smooth blue Aster

Mrs. Phactor has done pretty well at getting more fall color into her perennial flower beds. Growing together in the center of one bed are two "blue asters" that are easy to confuse with each other. This species is taller and has larger flowering heads, Aster laevis, the smooth blue aster. Is the aster smooth and blue, or is smooth blue a particular hue?  The former it would seem as the leaves and stems are hairless and sort of a bluish green.  In a mass the flower heads, only about 1" in diameter, are quite handsome. Growing to over 1 m tall, they tend to be rather floppy, but maybe they would be better if grown among other flowers and grasses of similar stature.  Missed Friday last week completely so this is late not early.

Botany 2015 by the numbers and some plant identification

TPP has been struggling with a few plant identifications these past couple of hours; a sunflower (just checking the id - Helianthus laetiflorus var. rigidus), a rosinweed, a couple of species (maybe?) of Solidago, and an unknown Aster with tiny little rayless heads. Does everyone know what SYC stands for? At any rate if you have ever waded through identification keys for any of these, especially the aster and goldenrod, you'll understand why TPP is allowing some email distraction followed by a bit of blogging.
The final report on the North American botany meetings that TPP just attended in Edmonton, Alberta, provided some encouraging numbers and demonstrated that this was one of the most diverse and best attended botany meetings in any ones' memory. Over 1600 students and faculty, and at least one dean, were in attendance, and while largely from the USA and Canada, over 50 countries were in represented. Over 900 talks and lectures were presented and there were acres of posters (almost 500 posters) and not enough time to see any thing close to all of them. This meeting was a collaboration among 14 scientific societies. It was just great. If you want to get a flavor of all this botanical science here's a link to some youtube videos of people presenting their posters. There are a couple of TPP's favorite colleagues in there, but they won't be identified so as to not sully their reputations.
Back to plant IDs. Ah, TPP guessed rightly about the aster being an Aster; it was tricky because it's a species that lacks ray flowers. Surprisingly, only one herbarium specimen exists of Aster brachyactis for positive comparison probably because of this plants drab, ho-hum floral display and weedy demeanor. However, that was an old field guide (but familiar) and the Flora of North America indicates that this species has been moved to another genus and reduced to synonymy with Symphyotrichum ciliatum. Here's a link to this beauty. 

Friday Fabulous Flower - New England Aster

The Phactor does not object to taxonomists who attempt to correctly classify organisms, however it nonetheless is annoying when a taxon and a plant's name that you have been using for over 40 years changes. Aster is one of those "know your genera" taxons where the common name and the scientific name are the same, although as nearly always the case the common use of aster is a lot more loose than the botanical use. Aster used to have something like 600 species strewn across N. America and Eurasia, but taxonomists have decided that all but one of the N. American species should be transferred to a series of other genera. So it goes with today's fabulous flower, or rather as is the case with members of the Asteraceae or sunflower family, a fabulous inflorescence of tiny flowers presenting the image of a much larger flower to pollinators and gardeners, the New England Aster, formerly Aster novae-angliae, now Symphyotrichum novae-angliae. Symphyotrichum (sim-fee-oh-try-cum) rolls off the tongue well enough, but it just isn't as familiar as Aster. This is why taxonomists hide away in herbaria in universities, museums, and botanical gardens; people would be kicking them in the shins for messing with their favorite plant names. Ah, but asethetically a New England aster by any other name would still be a massive clump of royal purple color gracing the fall landscape.