Plants usually slender, sometimes robust, but then not very compact . Stems glabrous or hirsute in lines. Leaf blades ovate-lanceolate or lanceolate to oblanceolate, 7-9 times as long as wide, bases ± clasping. 2n = 48.

Flowering Aug-Sep. Sand dunes, sandy or stony upper seashores, saltmarshes, sandy, gravelly or rocky stream shores, edges of moist thickets, edges of sea cliffs, ultramafic barrens, seaside meadows, open seaside mountain heath and meadows; 0-800 m; St. Pierre and Miquelon; N.B., Nfld. and Labr., N.S., P.E.I., Que.; Conn., Maine, Mass., N.H., N.Y., Pa., R.I., Vt., W.Va.; introduced in Mexico, Europe, Australia.

Several cultivars of var. novibelgii are sold in the horticultural trade. The following forms are not recognized here, as they represent mere color variants: forma novibelgii, forma albiflorus (Victorin) J. Rousseau, and forma roseus E. L. Rand & Redfield.

Symphyotrichum ×subgeminatum (Fernald) G. L. Nesom (as species) (syn.: Aster subgeminatus Fernald) is the hybrid of var. novibelgii with S. ciliolatum; it has been observed in western Newfoundland and the Gaspé (Quebec). Variety novibelgii also hybridizes with S. anticostense (L. Brouillet and J. Labrecque 1987).

Large and stout to sometimes small and slender, from long creeping rhizomes; stem 2-14 dm, sometimes puberulent in lines, sometimes glabrous except just under the heads; lvs chiefly cauline, lanceolate to elliptic or lance-linear, sessile and usually ±auriculate- clasping, though often narrowed toward the base, sharply serrate to entire, glabrous except for the scabrous- ciliate margins, often thick and firm, 4-17 cm נ4-25 mm; heads several or many in an open or more often leafy-bracteate infl; invol glabrous, 5-10 mm, its obtuse to sometimes sharply acute bracts ±imbricate or subequal, generally at least some of them with noticeably loose or spreading tip; green portion of the invol bracts evidently tapering and cuneate at the base, or the outermost bracts wholly green; rays 20-50, blue (rose or white), 6-14 mm; 2n=48, 64. Moist places, often in salt-marshes; Nf. to S.C., chiefly near the coast. (A. elodes; A. longifolius; A. tardiflorus)

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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