2019 November Plant of the Month BWSR Featured Plant Name: Calico aster (Symphyotrichum lateriflorum) Plant family: Aster (Asteraceae) Calico asters' fower Like a calico cat, a calico aster heads are yellow to purple with white has many colors. Flowers’ rays. Bracts are appressed, lance- centers, shaped and widest known as Plant Stats at the tip. Flowers STATEWIDE have light yellow or disks, can WETLAND rose-purple disks be yellow to when they open. INDICATOR STATUS: FACW Photo Credits: rose-purple. Metro Blooms Flowers of PRIMARY USES: Fall polliators' different food source; colors may woodland or shaded bloom on wetland habitat one plant enhancement at the same time. Although it can grow up to 3 feet tall, calico aster can be a low-growing, flowering plant of bee lawns if it’s mowed. Uses Range Calico aster is a source of silvery checkerspot butterfly Calico aster is nectar and pollen for a variety (Chlosyne nycteis) and pearl native to the of bees, wasps, flies and other crescent butterfly (Phyciodes eastern half of the insects. Caterpillars of the tharos) eat the leaves. United States and adjacent Canadian provinces. In Planting Recommendations Minnesota it is Calico aster is best suited to colonies from its rhizomes. generally found partial shade and moist soils. In woodlands, it can appear in all but the In ideal conditions, it can form lanky and delicate. southwest third of the state, typically in woodlands and other habitats Range map source: USDA’s Natural with partial shade Resources Conservation Service Plants Database and moderately moist soil. www.bwsr.state.mn.us 1 Left: Calico asters' flower heads are up to a half-inch wide, with eight to 16 rays.Photo Credit: Metro Blooms Middle: The branched stems are green or red, and usually hairy. Photo Credit: Susan Nelson Right: The elliptical leaves grow up to 6 inches long.Photo Credit: Brad Bolduan Identification Calico aster, AKA side- those turn purple only after appressed, lance-shaped and 1.5 inches wide. Leaf flowering aster, differs from the flowers open. Flower and widest at their green size decreases farther up the rest of Minnesota’s heads are a third-inch to a or purple tips. Flowers tend the stem. Hairy midribs are 30-plus native aster species half-inch wide, with eight to grow on only one side of found on the undersides. in that its floral disks may to 16 white or pale purple the branches. Calico aster The branched stems grow be yellow or purple when rays. Disk flowers are blooms in late summer and flowers first open. Other about an eighth-inch long early fall. The elliptic, lance- 1 to 3 feet long. They’re species may have yellow with deep, flaring lobes. shaped or linear leaves green or red, often leaning and purple disks, too, but Bracts below the heads are grow up to 6 inches long and usually hairy. Similar Species Other asters with small lanceolatum). Only calico with a magnifying lens.) Heath wide. Panicled asters have white flowers include heath asters have disk flowers with asters also differ in having 20 to 40 rays per flower and asters (Symphyotrichum deep, flaring lobes and leaves blunt, often spreading bracts narrow, spreading bracts. ericoides) and panicled with prominent hairs on the with white bases and linear Their leaves have short hairs asters (Symphyotrichum midrib. (The hairs are visible leaves less than a quarter-inch only along the edges. References USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service’s Plants Database:https://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=SYLA4 Flora of the Great Plains. Great Plains Flora Association. 1986. University Press of Kansas, Lawrence. Minnesota Wildflowers: www.minnesotawildflowers.info Illinois Wildflowers:https://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/savanna/plants/calico_aster.htm Wetland Plants of Minnesota. Steve W. Chadde. Second edition (revised), 2012. A Bogman Guide. Developed by Susan Nelson www.bwsr.state.mn.us 2.