Now Symphyotrichum novae-angliae. Our showiest native aster, with many cultivated varieties bred for color and habit. The wild ones are somehow more beautiful, perhaps because in some way they are more true. These were found in a roadside meadow near West Newton, where at least four species of aster grew together with joyful abandon.

North American asters have been moved wholesale by botanists to the euphonious genus Symphyotrichum, but if they were listed here under that name no one would find them.

From Gray’s Manual of Botany: A. novae-angliae L7* Stem stout, hairy, 0.5-2.6 m. high, corymbed at the summit ; leaves numerous, lanceolate, entire, acute, auriculate-clasping, clothed with minute pubescence, 0.5-1 dm. long; bracts nearly equal, linear-awl-shaped, loose, glandular-viscid, as well as the branchlets;  rays violet-purple, rarely white, very numerous; achenes hairy. Moist chiefly calcareous grounds, centr. Me. to w. Que., westw. and southw. Aug.-Oct. Heads large; a very handsome species, popular in cultivation. (Escaped
from gardens, and locally naturalized in Eu.)

It’s so common that we hardly see it, but Canada Goldenod is a breathtakingly spectacular flower, much appreciated in European gardens. Americans often unjustly blame it for hay fever, when in fact it is the nearly invisible ragweeds, with their unremarkable green flowers that bloom alongside the goldenrods, that are the culprits. Here a Canada Goldenrod grows from a crack in the pavement beside a vacant building in Oakmont, where goldenrods, asters, thoroughworts, and evening primroses have formed a more artistic border than any human gardener could have conceived.

Goldenrods are notoriously difficult to sort out, with dozens of species fading into one another. Our identification is probable but not certain.

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.

Also known as Tall White Aster. A spectacularly beautiful plant, growing to eight feet and covered with starry white flowers. These plants grew along a corrugated steel fence near a railroad track in Oakmont.

From Gray’s Manual of Botany: A. paniculatus Lain. Stem smoothish, 0.5-2. 5m. high, much branched; the branches and scattered heads (about 2 cm. broad) loosely paniculate; leaves elongate-oblong to narrowly lanceolate, pointed, somewhat serrate or entire; the cauline 0.5-1.5 dm. long, about 1 cm. wide; involucre 8 mm. long; its bracts narrowly linear, with attenuate green tips, or the outermost wholly green; rays white or purplish, G-8 mm. long. Wet meadows, thickets, etc., throughout. Aug. -Oct.

(Gray also notes that this aster is hard to distinguish from several other species. The chief identifying characteristic of these specimens was their spectacular height, at least seven feet. This identification is our best guess.)

We wind up the thoroughwort season with this late entry, whose dusty off-white puffs of raggedy flowers decorate roadsides and railroad rights-of-way in September and October. A close view reveals the inividual flowers that make up each head. This specimen grew through a crack in a disused parking lot in Oakmont.

From Gray’s Manual of Botany: Eupatorium serotinum Michx. Stem pulverulent-pubescent, bushy-branched, 1-2 m. high ; leaves ovate-lanceolate, tapering to a point, triple-nerved and veiny, coarsely serrate, 0.5-1.5 dm. long ; involucre very pubescent. Alluvial ground, Md. to Minn., e. Kan., and south w.