Symphyotrichum fendleri

Fendler’s Aster

Symphyotrichum fendleri (A. Gray) G.L. Nesom is native to open, sandy, silty, shaly, often rocky soils, eroded limestone or sandstone outcrops, mixed-grass prairies, pastures, roadsides of the High Plains from southern Nebraska to Pandhandle Texas and adjacent Oklahoma and the base of the foothills of the Rockies in Colorado and northern New Mexico ().  The species is distinguished by its thick, woody rootstocks, decumbent to ascending, sometimes erect 6-40 cm tall stems, hairless thick (firm) leaves with ± mucronate apices, hairless phyllaries, 10-20 violet-purple rays, and moderately strigillose fruit bodies with 7-10 ribs.  The species is diploid with x=5 (2n=10).

Symphyotrichum fendleri range Semple draft

Last revised 16 May 2025 by J.C. Semple

© 2025 J.C. Semple, including all photographs unless otherwise indicated

1-4. Symphyotrichum fendleri. 1.  Habitat, Semple & Brouillet 7323, Barton Co., Kansas. 2-4. Habits and flowering shoot, Semple & Brouillet 7274, Paso Co., Colorado.