Symphyotrichum puniceum

Purple-stem Aster,  Swamp Aster, Red-stemmed Aster, aster ponceau

Symphyotrichum puniceum (L.) Á. Löve & D. Löve is widely distributed eastern North American species native to wetter often peaty soils in open to moderately shaded fields, swamps, wetlands, and disturbed locations from northern Québec west to Alberta and south to northern Georgia (var. puniceum) and coastal further south to Texas (Brouillet et al. 2006; FNA).  Stems are coarsely hispid-villose, green to reddish, and abaxial veins of leaves are moderately to densely hairy. Hairless plants or those with hairs in lines on the stem included in Sy. puniceum historically are treated here as Sy. firmum. The species is diploid 2n=16 over much of its range with a few tetraploids 2n=32 reported from near the prairies in southeastern Manitoba, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.

Two varieties are recognized here:

Stems sparsely to ± densely hirsute, glabrescent, sometimes glabrate proximally; abaxial leaf faces paler than adaxial, with a dark, distinct reticulum, adaxial without impressed main veins; array leaves usually equal to mid cauline; most of range of species (northern limits uncertain)       

    Symphyotrichum puniceum var. puniceum

Stems densely and uniformly hirsute; abaxial and adaxial leaf faces ±concolorous, without dark, distinct reticulum, adaxial with distinctly impressed main veins); array leaves reduced in size relative to mid cauline; southern limits of species scattered in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and eastern Texas (of conservation concern)        

   Symphyotrichum puniceum var. scabricaule (Shinners) Nesom