USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database / USDA NRCS. Wetland flora: Field office illustrated guide to plant species. USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service.
Where Commonly Found: Marshes, salt marshes, forest edges, meadows, fields, shores of rivers and lakes, CT, ME, MA, NH, NY, RI, VT
How to Identify:
(For unfamiliar words: Wikipedia Glossary of Botanical Terms).
Go Botany Key to Symphyotrichum novi-belgii.
Flower Type: Composite flowers or gold to yellow disk florets surrounded by 15-25 violet, pale purple to blue rays, flower heads are 3/4″ – 1-1/4″ across, appearing in September.
Leaf Arrangement: Alternate leaves that clasp the stems, like New England asters, larger leaves near the base up to 8″ long, reducing in size further up the branching, glabrous and hairy in line stems.
Leaf Type: narrowly lanceolate, smooth, nearly glabrous
Height: 1′ – 3′
Seed Collection: Dry, brown, obovoid, compressed seeds, can have short stiff hairs becoming smooth with age.
Attracts: Bees, Butterflies, Larval Host
Use: Garden or Naturalizing
Light: Full Sun to Part Sun
Hardiness Zone: 3 to 9 USDA Zone Map
Soils: Moist
Notes: New York Aster is a popular wildflower great for gardens and meadows offering late season violet flowers highly valued by pollinators.
Native to the Northeast US, rare in PA: Biota of North America Program (BONAP) – North America Plant Atlas (NAPA).
Northeast Wild Seed Collectors 
You must be logged in to post a comment.