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Thursday, September 7, 2017

AZURE ASTER



ASTER AZUREUS, A PERENNIAL ABOUT THREE FEET TALL...

...ASTER AZUREUS FLOWERS...

...BLOOMING ALONG THE BEACH ROAD
Thursday, 8:00 AM.  55 degrees F at the ferry dock, 51 on the back porch.  Wind W, light with slightly stronger gusts.  The sky is cloudy and there is a chance of rain again today.  The barometer is rising, now at 29.99".  the high will be in the mid-50's today, warming with clearing skies for the weekend.
   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 taxonomists have been up to their old tricks again, and the Aster scientific name has recently been changed in some of the literature to Symphytotrichum , and the species name to oolentangiensis (after the Olentangy River of Ohio), but I will stick with the old nomenclature.  
   With tongue in cheek, I will theorize that the botanist behind the name change was an Ohio State University professor, as the Olentangy river runs through its campus in Columbus, Ohio, where the students have nicknamed  the river, "The Old and Tangy."

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