Plants 7-200+ cm. Stems usually sparsely to ± densely hirsute, often glabrescent, sometimes glabrate proximally, sometimes entirely so (hirsute in lines in arrays). Leaves: abaxial faces paler than adaxial, with a dark, distinct reticulum, adaxial without impressed main veins; array leaves usually equal to mid cauline. 2n = 16, 32.
Flowering Aug-Oct. Wet soils, often peaty, open to moderately shaded, margins of alluvial deciduous woods and alder thickets, swamp margins, edges of bogs, stream and lake shores, marshes, wet meadows, early-melting coastal or riparian snowbeds with boreal forbs (northern alpine and subarctic regions), roadside and drainage ditches; 0-2000 m; St. Pierre and Miquelon; Alta., B.C., Man., N.B., Nfld. and Labr., N.S., Ont., P.E.I., Que., Sask.; Ala., Conn., Del., Ga., Ill., Ind., Iowa, Maine, Md., Mich., Minn., Mo., Nebr., N.H., N.J., N.Y., N.C., N.Dak., Ohio, Pa., R.I., S.C., S.Dak., Tenn., Vt., Va., W.Va., Wis.; introduced in Europe.
The following forms that pertain to var. puniceum are not recognized here: Aster puniceus forma blandus (Pursh) Lepage, forma candidus Fernald, forma colbyi Shinners, forma demissus (Lindley) Fernald, forma etiamalbus Venard, and forma rufescens Fassett. Variety calderi is a dwarf morphotype at the northern limit of the range that does not deserve taxonomic recognition. Hybrids of var. puniceum with the following species have been reported: Symphyotrichum lanceolatum (probably A. tardiflorus Linnaeus var. lancifolius Fernald), S. lateriflorum, S. urophyllum, and S. cordifolium.
Frequent in the northern part of the state, becoming infrequent to very rare in the southern part. It is an inhabitant of springy places along streams and about lakes and swamps. It rarely forms large colonies and sometimes grows to great height. In Noble County, I measured a specimen that was 9 feet high. [Variety compactus] is a form with subrhomboidal leaves that are usually as long as or longer than the branches. I have it from only Parke County where I found it in the remnant of Nigger Legs Prairie about a mile east of Rosedale. [Variety demissus] has elongate-lanceolate leaves that are usually as long as or longer than the branches. Peattie reported it from La Porte County and I have it from Grant, Lagrange, and Owen Counties. Buhl (Bull. Chicago Acad. Sci. 5: 9. 1934) was in error in reporting Peattie's collection as from Porter County. Peattie's report was from Trail Creek, Michigan City, which is in La Porte County.
Plants with a short stout rhizome or caudex, sometimes with short thick stolons as well; stem stout, 0.5-2.5 m, simple or much branched above, uniformly spreading-hairy at least under the heads, conspicuously spreading-hispid (or occasionally glabrous) below; lvs chiefly cauline, sessile, auriculate-clasping, rather distantly serrate to occasionally entire, scabrous to subglabrous above, glabrous or spreading-hairy along the midrib beneath, lanceolate to oblong or elliptic-oblong, 7-16 cm נ12-40 mm; heads few to many in a leafy infl; invol 6-12 mm, its bracts slender and loose, scarcely or not at all imbricate, at least the inner long-acuminate to attenuate, often some of the outer enlarged and leafy, but still narrow; rays 30-60, blue (rose or white), 7-18 mm; achenes glabrous or nearly so; 2n=16. Swamps and other moist places; Nf. to Sask., s. to Va., Ill., and Neb., and in the mts. to Ga. and Ala.
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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