Rhymes With Fuchsia

Friday, September 26, 2008

Friday Flowers: Another Little Mystery


Here's another unidentified flower: does anyone know what it is? I have no clue. It looks related to those purple/lavender things that grow like crazy near highways, but I don't know what those are either.

I had been dithering about Rhinebeck, but I am going! With Miss B and Lisa. Yay!

posted by Lucia at 10:41 PM

3 Comments:

  • New England aster, Aster novae-angliae,
    http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=SYNO2
    sometimes called Michaelmas daisy, and one of my favorite native wildflowers.

    I always think they look like those bouquets magicians pull out of the hat.

    I have a number of them growing that I rescued from construction bulldozers.

    By Blogger Alwen, at 7:34 AM  

  • I concur w/ Alwen. As does dh the botanist. Sometimes these are purpler (is that a word??). Oh, YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYYYYY!!!!!

    By Blogger knitnzu, at 10:26 AM  

  • Are you sure? To me your close up looks very like New England aster.

    If you rub the foliage, how does it smell? NE asters have a distinct spicy smell.

    The color can vary quite a bit in NE aster, from a very light bright pink to a definite purple.

    Another field mark is the leaf: if you look at the base of the stem leaves, and they have two little backswept claspy bits, that's novae-angliae.

    We have quite a few other asters here, white ones and much paler lavendar ones, but these is not them, if you know what I mean. To me the one at the USDA website looks a lot paler and lavendar-er than the ones I usually see.

    By Blogger Alwen, at 7:15 PM  

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