AZURE ASTER IN BLOOM

PERENNIAL ABOUT THREE FEET TALL...

...ASTER AZUREUS ASTER FLOWERS

Tuesday, 55 degrees F at the ferry dock, 51 on the back porch.  Wind W, light with slightly stronger gusts.  The sky is overcast and cloudy, the humidity 81%.  The barometer is on the rise, now standing at 30.01".  Storm clouds should begin to clear out as the day progresses.
   Last weekend was a terrible time in Bayfield County for vehicle accidents; one killed, several injured just south of Bayfield on Hwy. 13, one killed on Highway C between Washburn and Cornucopia, and two killed in an accident with a Spooner school bus (fortunately no children hurt).   Please, slow down and live!
   The azure blue aster, Aster azureus, in the Sunflower, or Aster (Compositae)Family, is a robust perennial, this one about three feet tall, with a many-flowered inflorescence.  The central disk flowers are yellow, the ray flowers light blue to sky blue (the yellow center has begun to fade in these photos).  It is a fall aster common to central North America from Ontario to Texas.  It grows in full sun to light shade, in moderate to dry conditions, in various types of soil.  There are about seventy species of asters in North America but I am pretty confident of its identification.
   The Aster scientific name has recently been changed in some of the literature to Symphyotrichum oolentangiensis (after the Olentangy River of Ohio), but I will stick with the old nomenclature.