General: Perennial herb from a creeping rhizome or stem-base; stems ascending to erect, hairy above, simple or branched above, 0.1-1.0 m tall.
Leaves: Basal leaves few, soon deciduous; stem leaves oblanceolate below, often narrowed to a winged, stalked base, slightly if at all clasping, 7-13 cm long, 1-2 cm wide, glabrous or nearly so, saw-toothed, at least above.silvery, especially beneath, with fine, close, feltlike woolly hairs, green with age, entire; stem leaves several, lanceolate to spoon-shaped, greatly reduced.
Flowers: Heads with ray and disk flowers, few to more commonly many in a round-topped inflorescence; involucres 5-6 mm tall; involucral bracts often strongly graduated, linear to lanceolate, abruptly sharp-pointed, usually with a conspicuous, yellowish or brownish basal portion and with an evidently thin, dry, papery or sometimes minutely fringed margin; ray flowers 20-30, violet, 10-15 mm long; disk flowers yellow.
Fruits: Achenes faintly nerved, more or less hairy; pappus usually reddish at maturity.
Moist to mesic meadows, streambanks, shrub thickets and open forests in the lowland and montane zones; frequent in coastal BC, common in S BC and infrequent northward to 56degreeN; N to AK, E to AB and S to MT, ID and OR.
Ecological Framework for Symphyotrichum subspicatum
The table below shows the species-specific information calculated from original data (BEC database) provided by the BC Ministry of Forests and Range. (Updated August, 2013)
