Aquatic and Wetland Vascular Plants of the Northern Great Plains
49. Asteraceae, the Aster Family
2. Aster L. -- Aster1. Aster brachyactis Blake -- Rayless aster
Taprooted annual 1.5-6 dm tall, simple and erect to branched and spreading, mostly glabrous. Leaves sessile, linear, 2-8 cm long, 2-5 mm wide, remotely ciliolate on the margins, acuminate. Heads usually numerous, hemispheric, 1-2 cm across, in an open-paniculate to spikelike inflorescence which commonly comprises the bulk of the plant; involucre 5-11 mm high, the bracts linear, equal or slightly imbricate, or the outer ones sometimes slightly longer than the inner; rays none, the outer pistillate florets with short, tubular corollas, more numerous than the perfect disk florets. Achenes flattened, 1.5-2 mm long, appressed-puberulent; pappus conspicuous, longer than the corollas, soft and copious. Jul--Sep. Shores, stream banks, wet meadows and flats, often where saline; frequent in ND and e SD, less common s and w; (MN to B.C., s to MO, KS, CO, UT and WA, sparingly intro. e in the U.S. and Can.; also native in Siberia).
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