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rough-leaf aster, rough-leaf wood-aster

Habit Plants 10–70 cm, laxly cespitose (grayish green), eglandular; rhizomes elongate, slender, woody.
Stems

1–3, ascending to erect, often purple, simple, flexuous, proximally glabrescent or sparsely villous, distally ± densely villous.

Leaves

cauline, firm, margins slightly revolute, coarsely serrate or (distal) entire, scabrous to strigoso-ciliate, teeth mucronate, ± markedly veined, apices mucronate, abaxial faces scabrous, adaxial scabroso-strigose;

proximal mostly withering by flowering, petioles winged, shorter than blades, bases clasping, blades elliptic to obovate 12–45+ × 7–20+ mm, smaller than mid, apices obtuse;

mid narrowly winged-petiolate (petioles short with ± clasping bases), distally subpetiolate or sessile, blades ovate or elliptic to broadly oblanceolate or obovate, 32–85(–130) × 4–40 mm, gradually reduced distally, bases usually attenuate, sometimes cuneate, apices obtuse to acute;

distal (arrays) oblanceolate to lanceolate, 5–28 × 1–8 mm, more sharply reduced.

Peduncles

densely villous;

bracts 0–1, scabroso-strigose.

Involucres

campanulate, 6–9 mm, shorter than pappi.

Ray florets

10–15;

corollas white to sometimes pale violet or purple, 8.5–11(–13) × 1.3–2.3 mm.

Disc florets

30–70;

corollas yellow becoming purple- or pinkish-tinged, 6–7(–8) mm, ± ampliate, tubes equaling to longer than funnelform-campanulate throats, lobes usually erect, sometimes ± spreading, lanceolate, 1–1.3 mm.

Phyllaries

38–62 in 4–5 series, midnerves slightly raised (outer), oblong (outer) to lanceolate-linear or linear (inner), unequal, membranous, bases indurate, ± rounded, green zones to scarious margins in distal 1/3–1/2 (outer; seldom ± wholly foliaceous) to 1/5 or none (inner), margins often purple, hyaline, narrowly scarious, erose, densely villoso-ciliate, apices appressed, sometimes purplish-tinged, usually acute, sometimes obtuse, adaxial faces villous.

Heads

5–30+ in flat-topped, corymbiform arrays.

Cypselae

tawny, fusiform, 3–3.5 mm, slightly compressed, ribs 7–9 (brown, translucent), faces strigillose;

pappi of tawny bristles 2.7–3 mm, ± equaling disc corollas.

2n

= 18, 27.

Eurybia radulina

Phenology Flowering summer.
Habitat Dry rock outcrops, edges of forests, open forests, mostly on slopes, foothill oak woodlands, oak, oak-fir, yellow pine forests
Elevation (10–)100–1600 m ((0–)300–5200 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
CA; OR; WA; BC
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Eurybia radulina is confined mostly west of the Cascades, from southern Vancouver Island (British Columbia) to the southern Coast Ranges, north Channel Islands, and central Sierra Nevada in California. It often is confused with E. merita in the western, coastal states where both are found, though populations are rarely if ever sympatric, the former apparently thriving at lower elevations than the latter.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Source FNA vol. 20, p. 369.
Parent taxa Asteraceae > tribe Astereae > Eurybia
Sibling taxa
E. avita, E. chlorolepis, E. compacta, E. conspicua, E. divaricata, E. eryngiifolia, E. furcata, E. hemispherica, E. integrifolia, E. jonesiae, E. macrophylla, E. merita, E. mirabilis, E. paludosa, E. radula, E. saxicastelli, E. schreberi, E. sibirica, E. spectabilis, E. spinulosa, E. surculosa, E. ×herveyi
Synonyms Aster radulinus, Aster eliasii, Weberaster radulinus
Name authority (A. Gray) G. L. Nesom: Phytologia 77: 261. (1995)
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