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Liatris aspera - (image 1 of 5)

Taxonomy

Family: Asteraceae

Habitat

Dry prairies, meadows, thin woods, usually in sandy soil.

Associates

Distribution

ND to OK and TX, east to MI and MS, occasionally to southern Ontario, OH, west VA, and northern FL.

Morphology

Herbaceous perennial from a corm-like rootstock; stems 40-150 cm, short-hairy or glabrous throughout; lower leaves long-petiole, to 40 cm long; cauline leaves 25-90 below the inflorescence; heads (10-)14-many in an elongate-spriciform inflorescence, or peduncles sometimes more elongate to 5 cm; involucres 8-15 mm, campanulate to subhermispheric, glabrous; involucral bracts loosely spreading or squarrose, tending to be bullate, often purplish towards the apex, with conspicuous, lacerate, often crisped, scarious margins that are sometimes folded under; flowers 14-35 per head; corollas hairy towards the base within; pappus barbellate.

Notes

Flowers August to October.

Wetland indicator: NA

Can be one of the dominant species in sandy prairies in the Midwest. The large, more or less sessile heads with swollen bracts are distinctive.

  References

Gleason, Henry A. and A. Cronquist. 1991. Manual of Vascular Plants of Northeastern United States and Adjacent Canada. Second Ed.
The New York Botanical Garden. Bronx, NY.

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