Wildflower Wednesday

It's Wildflower Wednesday care of Gail @ Clay and Limestone.

I've known for weeks what I would be talking about this Wednesday.  You simply can't look anywhere right now without seeing Asters.  Unfortunately that means fall is upon us.

I've spotted three varieties in our yard alone.

I was going to tell you their names but it seems Asters are one of the most difficult species to identify.  At first I thought these tiny white blooms with the fluffy pink centers might be Drummond's Aster.  But I discovered this variety lives much further south so that wasn't right.  I also considered Aster lateriflorus or Calico Aster.  But I read the distinctive feature of that plant is it's long horizontal branches and sparse flowers.  Some of the plants appear to have horizontal branches but not all of them so I'm not quite convinced.  So for now you'll have to bear with me and call them those tiny white Asters with the fluffy pink centres. 

There is another tall white variety with large blooms on it which I failed to get a photo of (so you'll just have to believe me).  And we also have purple Asters.  Some appear to be quite low growing and others are as tall as I am. 

Although I wasn't able to identify any single variety I did learn a little about Asters in my attempts at identification.  The first thing I found out is that Asters have composite flowers.  This means that the flower we see is actually composed of two sets of flowers.  The outside 'petals' form a flower called a Ray and the centre forms a flower called a Disc.

I also discovered that Discs are tricky.  The Disc of an Aster often changes colour as the flower ages.  If you look at the photo below you will notice the flowers at the top of the photo have a yellow disc and the flowers below are pink.

Changing colours can make identification difficult so many other factors need to be taken into account.  You'll need to look at other features such as leaf shape, plant height, habitat, and size of flowers to help with your identification.  These other features are always helpful when identifying a new plant but they are extremely important when it comes to Asters because these flowers tend to resemble each other very closely.

There's also the little issue of the number of Asters in the world.  This genus previously contained approximately 600 species.  That genus has now been broken up in almost a dozen new categories but the fact is if you're not schooled in botany these flowers are going to all look a lot alike. 

I don't think I'm going to become an expert in the identification of Asters anytime soon but I'm happy enough to call them purple, white, tall and short.  And to me the most wonderful attribute of these Asters  is that I didn't plant them.  They have simply shown up of their own free will for all to enjoy.  Making sure I have their botanical name right isn't going to change my appreciation for them.