Symphyotrichum spathulatum var. intermedium

General:
Perennial herb from a fibrous-rooted, creeping rhizome; stems ascending to erect, branched above, glabrous to slightly hairy; 0.2-1.0 m tall.

Leaves:
Basal leaves soon deciduous; stem leaves oblanceolate and stalked below, linear or lanceolate and unstalked above, 3-15 cm long, 3-13 mm wide, mostly 7-10 times as long as wide, mostly glabrous, entire.

Flowers:
Heads with ray and disk flowers, solitary to many in an open, round-topped inflorescence; involucres 5-7 mm tall; involucral bracts scarcely to evidently graduated, linear to linear-oblong, abruptly sharp-pointed, rarely obtuse, glabrous, margins fringed with small hairs, often green to the base, infrequently minutely purple-tipped; ray flowers 20-50, blue to violet or purple, 6-15 mm long; disk flowers yellow.

Fruits:
Achenes obscurely nerved, hairy; pappus whitish.

Notes:
Two fairly distinct varieties occur in our region and may be separated as follows:

1. Heads solitary or several in a sparsely leafy, few-branched inflorescence; leaves linear.......................... var. occidentalis

1. Heads numerous in a leafy, much-branched inflorescence; leaves lanceolate........................... var. intermedius A. Gray

Source:  The Illustrated Flora of British Columbia