White wood aster

Eurybia divaricata, the white wood aster (formerly Aster divaricatus), is a clonal perennial herb in the Asteraceae family native to the Appalachian Mountains and adjacent eastern North America, ranging from Maine south to Alabama and west to Ohio and Kentucky, with disjunct populations in Ontario and Quebec where it is considered threatened. Plants spread by branched rhizomes to form loose colonies and produce one to several simple, flexuous, often dark-purplish stems 30 to 90 centimetres tall. The lower leaves are long-petiolate, broadly ovate to heart-shaped with coarsely toothed margins, while the upper leaves become smaller and more lance-shaped on shorter stalks. Flowering occurs from August through October; the inflorescence is a broad, flat-topped corymbiform cluster of small heads, each with six to ten white ray florets and a centre of yellow disc florets that ages to red-purple. Fruits are small ribbed cypselas with a white pappus.