Normally a late-summer flower, but this one was gamely blooming in early November after more than one frost, when perennial sunflowers are supposed to be settling in for the winter. It likes shade, and is happiest at the edge of a woodland clearing; this one was growing along a thickly wooded street in Beechview. Note the opposite lanceolate leaves with shallow teeth and the slightly sloppy downward-facing pointed bracts.

Gray describes the genus and the species:

HELIANTHUS L. SUNFLOWER
Heads many-flowered; rays several or many, neutral. Involucre imbricated, herbaceous or foliaceous. Receptacle flat or convex; the persistent chaff embracing the 4-sided and laterally compressed smooth achenes, which are neither winged nor margined. Pappus very deciduous, of 2 thin chaffy scales on the principal angles, and sometimes 2 or more small intermediate scales. —Coarse and stout herbs, with solitary or corymbed heads, and yellow rays; flowering toward autumn. (Named from helios, the sun, and anthos, a flower.)

H. divaricatus L. Stem simple or forked and corymbed at the top, 0.5-2 m. high, smooth below; leaves all opposite and divaricate, ovate-lanceolate, 3-nerved from the rounded or truncate sessile base, tapering gradually to a sharp point, 0.5-2 dm. long, serrate, thickish, rough both sides; bracts narrowly lanceolate, attenuate, ciliate, equaling the disk (1 cm. wide); rays 8-12, 2.5 cm. long. Thickets and barrens, s. Me. to L. Winnipeg, Neb., and southw.

Now Symphyotrichum prenanthoides. Blue asters are among the last flowers of the fall. Identifying asters is, of course, a foolish endeavor, but this one has the clasping leaves and zigzag stem that identify a Zigzag Aster. It was blooming at the edge of the woods near the parking lot of the Pittsburgh Zoo in late October.

From Gray’s Manual:

A. prenanthoides Muhl. Stem 1 m. or less high, corymbose-panicled, hairy above in lines; leaves rough above, smooth underneath, ovate to lanceolate, sharply cut-toothed in the middle, conspicuously taper-pointed, and rather abruptly narrowed to a long contracted entire portion, which is abruptly dilated into a conspicuously auricled base; heads on short divergent peduncles; involucre 5-8 mm. high; bracts narrowly linear, tips recurved-spreading; rays violet. Borders of streams and rich woods, w. N. E. to Va. and Ky., w. Minn, and Ia. Aug.-Oct.

This would certainly be one of our most prized ornamentals if it weren’t prickly, ubiquitous, and ineradicable. The seeds are prized by goldfinches, which are among our most ornamental birds. This plant was blooming in late October along a seldom-used railroad siding in Oakmont.

Gray describes the genus and the species:

CIRSIUM [Tourn.] Hill. COMMON or PLUMED THISTLE

Heads many-flowered; flowers all tubular, perfect and similar, rarely imperfectly dioecious. Bracts of the ovoid or spherical involucre imbricated in many rows, tipped with a point or prickle. Receptacle thickly clothed with soft bristles or hairs. Achenes oblong, flattish, not ribbed; pappus of numerous bristles united into a ring at the base, plumose to the middle, deciduous. Herbs, mostly biennial; the sessile alternate leaves often pinnatifid, prickly. Heads usually large, terminal. Flowers reddish-purple, rarely white or yellowish; in summer. (Name from kirsos, a swelled vein, for which the Thistle was a reputed remedy.) CNICUS of many auth., not L. By some recent Am. auth. included in CARDUUS.

* * * * Outer bracts of the appressed involucre barely prickly-pointed; heads mostly small and numerous. None of the leaves strongly decurrent.

13. C. ARVENSE (L.) Scop. (CANADA THISTLE.) Perennial, slender, 3-9 dm. high, the rootstock extensively creeping; leaves oblong or lanceolate, smooth, or slightly woolly beneath, finally green both sides, strongly sinuate-pinnatifid, very prickly-margined, the upper sessile hut smrrcly decurrent; heads imperfectly dioecious; flowers rose-purple or whitish. (Carduus Robson; Cnicus Hoffm.) Cultivated fields, pastures, and roadsides, common; a most troublesome weed, extremely difficult to eradicate. (Nat. from Eu.) Var. VEST!TUM Wimm. & Grab. Leaves permanently white-lanate beneath. Locally established. (Nat. from Eu.) Var. INTEGRIFOLIUM Wimm. & Grab. Leaves  chiefly plane and uncut, or the lowest slightly pinnatifid. Local, Que., N. E., and N. Y. (Nat. from Eu. )

Goldenrods are the bees’ best friends. This one, which was blooming in late September, grew in front of a corrugated steel fence near a disused railroad siding in Oakmont. It may be common to the point of superabundance, but there is no more elegant wild flower than Canada Goldenrod.

From Gray’s Manual of Botany: S. canadensis L. Stem rather slender, 0.3-1.5 m. high, glabrous at least below, often minutely pubescent above; leaves narrowly lanceolate, thin, glabrous above, minutely pubescent on the nerves beneath, mostly sharp-serrate, the middle ones 6-13 cm. long, 5-18 mm. wide; heads tiny, crowded in recurved racemes and forming dense broadly pyramidal panicles; pedicels strongly pilose; involucral bracts linear, mostly attenuate, greenish-straw-color. (Var. glabrata Porter.) Thickets and rich open soil, Nfd. to N. Dak., s. to W. Va. and Ky. July-Sept.