Plants 30-80 cm. Stems ± densely hirsute, particularly distally. Leaves membranous, becoming thickish, brittle; basal and proximal winged-petiolate; proximal cauline blade bases cordate, becoming rounded-truncate distally. Heads in open, paniculiform arrays with very long, widely spreading branches. Peduncles 1-4 cm, densely, minutely bracteate. Involucres turbinate to hemispheric, 3.8-5.2 mm. Ray corollas bluish white. Cypselae strigillose. 2n = 32.

Flowering Sep-Nov (seldom spring). Loamy soils or well-drained clays, bottomlands, open deciduous woods, oak-juniper woodlands; 0-100+ m; Ark., Kans., La., Miss., Mo., Okla., Tex.; Mexico (Coahuila).

Variety texanum is known mainly from the Ozarks, east-central Texas, and the Edwards Plateau; it is disjunct to Coahuila (G. L. Nesom 1993g).

Resembling no. 32 [Aster drummondii Lindl.] but with more open infl, the branches commonly very long, with copiously and minutely bracteate nonfloriferous base, or in more compact plants merely the peduncles conspicuously elongate (mostly well over 1 cm) and copiously bracteate; plants fully as hairy as no. 32, or less so; 2n=16, ?18. Bottomlands and open woods; w. Ky. to e. Kans., s. to s. Miss. and e. Tex.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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