Symphyotrichum fendleri

Fendler’s Aster

Symphyotrichum fendleri (A. Gray) G.L. Nesom is native to open, sandy, silty, shaly, often rocky soils, eroded limestone or sandstone outcrops, mixed-grass prairies, pastures, roadsides of the High Plains from southern Nebraska to Pandhandle Texas and adjacent Oklahoma and the base of the foothills of the Rockies in Colorado and northern New Mexico (Brouillet et al. 2006 FNA).  The species is distinguished by its thick, woody rootstocks, decumbent to ascending, sometimes erect 6-40 cm tall stems, hairless thick (firm) leaves with ± mucronate apices, hairless phyllaries, 10-20 violet-purple rays, and moderately strigillose fruit bodies with 7-10 ribs.  The species is diploid with x=5 (2n=10).