Eurybia conspicua
Eurybia avita
showy aster, showy wood-aster, western showy aster
Alexander's Rock aster
1, erect, seldom branched proximally, stout, proximally glabrate to villous and sparsely glandular (sometimes to base), distally glabrate, strongly glandular.
1–5+, erect to ascending, simple, strict, slender, stiff, proximally glabrous or glabrate, distally hirtello-puberulent.
cauline, thick, ample, bases clasping, margins ± revolute, sharply serrate (rarely subentire) with ± mucronate teeth, veins prominent, apices acute to acuminate, mucronate, faces scabrous, adaxial veins villous;
proximal cauline deciduous by flowering, winged-subpetiolate to sessile, blades oblanceolate to ovate or obovate, smaller than mid, bases tapering;
mid usually sessile, sometimes subsessile, obovate or elliptic, (40–)58–140(–180) × (8–)20–50(–80) mm, bases cuneate to mostly rounded-subauriculate;
distal (in arrays) sessile, ovate to oblanceolate, lanceolate, or elliptic, (8–)10–60(–90) × 2–28(–40) mm, strongly reduced distally.
basal and cauline, firm, blades (1-nerved) linear to lance-linear or oblong-linear (grasslike), 25–140+ × 2–5 mm, ± coriaceous, bases sheathing, margins entire to remotely serrulate-spinose, indurate, remotely scabrous, spines thickened, apices acute, revolute, faces glabrous;
basal and proximal cauline often withering by flowering, bases marcescent, ± long-petiolate;
mid and distal progressively sessile and reduced.
sometimes sparsely hairy, stipitate-glandular;
bracts usually 0, sometimes 1–3.
densely hirtellous;
bracts 1–2, usually immediately subtending heads.
campanulate, 9–12 mm, shorter than pappi.
cylindro-campanulate, 7–9 mm, shorter than pappi.
12–35;
corollas blue or violet, (8–)10–15 × 1.2–2 mm.
8–20;
corollas bluish white to lavender or deep violet, 5–10 × 1–1.7 mm.
48–55;
corollas yellow, 9–10 mm, slightly ampliate, tubes narrowly cylindric, slightly longer than narrowly funnelform throats, lobes erect, lanceolate, 0.7–1.3 mm.
15–45;
corollas yellow, 5.5–7 mm, barely ampliate, tubes shorter than narrowly funnelform throats, lobes erect, triangular, 0.6–0.7 mm.
34–55 in 4–5 series, midnerves translucent, strongly unequal, membranous, bases indurate, dark green distally, margins densely ciliate, apices spreading or ± squarrose, purple (mucro), acute or acuminate (sometimes mucronate), faces glabrous, densely stipitate-glandular;
outer ovate or lanceolate;
inner oblong-lanceolate, margins hyaline, often purplish distally, scarious.
30–55+ in 4–5 series, unequal, chartaceous, bases indurate, margins narrowly hyaline, scabrous, erose, fimbriate, apices appressed or reflexed, acute, sometimes acuminate (some outer), mucronate, marginally thickened, faces glabrous;
outer lance-oblong, rounded, apical zones dark green, flat;
inner linear-oblong, apical zones pale green, restricted to broadly acute tips.
5–50 in open corymbiform arrays.
3–15+ in narrow, flat-topped corymbiform arrays.
tan, fusiform, ± compressed, 3–4 mm, ribs 8–10, appressed-setose;
pappi of cinnamon to pinkish bristles 9–10 mm, about as long as disc corollas.
tan, fusiform, ± compressed, ca. 5 mm, ribs 7–10(–12) (stramineous, broad), strigillose;
pappi of cinnamon to sordid bristles 5.5–6 mm, equaling disc corollas.
= ca. 108, ca. 122.
= 18.
Eurybia conspicua
Eurybia avita
Eurybia conspicua is a western boreo-montane taxon; it ranges from the Interior Mountains and Plateaus to the Rocky Mountains, and spreads onto the northern Great Plains in the aspen parklands-southern boreal forests of Canada, barely into western Manitoba. It is disjunct to the Black Hills (South Dakota) and Cypress Hills (Alberta-Saskatchewan). It stops at the Canadian Shield due to soil preferences (A. J. Breitung 1988). This taxon has the highest chromosome number in the genus.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Of conservation concern.
Eurybia avita is known from Stone Mountain (the type location, where it is now extirpated according to R. Kral 1983, vol. 2) and granite flatrocks in Georgia, and from Pickens County in South Carolina, where it is imperiled; it is presumed extirpated from North Carolina (www.natureserve.org). Kral mapped the species; he underlined its similarities to both E. surculosa and E. paludosa and the need for further studies of its relationships.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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