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rockcastle aster

Habit Plants 40–120 cm; in clones; rhizomes elongate, strong.
Stems

1, erect, strict (slightly flexuous distally), simple, glabrous, distally ± villosulous (arrays).

Leaves

cauline;

proximal withering by flowering, narrowly winged-petiolate, blades broadly oblanceolate or elliptic to obovate, smaller than mid;

mid and distal winged-petiolate (5–30 mm), broadly elliptic to oblanceolate, (70–)90–140 × 40–50(–60) mm, reduced distally, bases cuneate, with 4–5 pairs of marked veins, margins coarsely serrate (teeth 1–4 mm), slightly revolute, scabrous, apices acuminate;

abaxial faces glabrescent, adaxial sparsely pilose, mainly on veins.

Peduncles

sparsely pilose;

bracts 0–1, foliaceous, remotely serrulate.

Involucres

campanulate, 7–11 mm, shorter than pappi.

Ray florets

10–30;

corollas pale white to pale blue, 10–15 × 1.5–2 mm.

Disc florets

10–20;

corollas yellow turning pinkish, ca. 4.5–5 mm, tubes longer than funnelform throats, lobes spreading, triangular, ca. 1.5 mm.

Phyllaries

32–36 in 4–5 series, broadly oblong, strongly unequal, scarious, dark green zones wide, from 1/2 distally, margins hyaline, narrow, erose, densely ciliate, apices appressed or often slightly squarrose, obtuse to subacute, faces glabrous, eglandular.

Heads

1–10, borne singly or in corymbiform arrays.

Cypselae

tan, fusiform, cylindric, 5–6 mm, ribs 7–11, stramineous, faces ± strigose;

pappi of pale stramineous (clavate) bristles 5–7 mm, shorter than to ± equaling disc corollas.

2n

= 54.

Eurybia saxicastelli

Phenology Flowering late summer–fall.
Habitat Back edge of spring-flooded, summer-dry, sandstone boulder–cobble river bars with shrubby vegetation
Elevation (600–)1000–1500 m ((2000–)3300–4900 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
KY; TN
Discussion

Of conservation concern.

Eurybia saxicastelli is known only from the Rockcastle River of Kentucky (J. J. N. Campbell and M. E. Medley 1989) and Tennessee.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Source FNA vol. 20, p. 372.
Parent taxa Asteraceae > tribe Astereae > Eurybia
Sibling taxa
E. avita, E. chlorolepis, E. compacta, E. conspicua, E. divaricata, E. eryngiifolia, E. furcata, E. hemispherica, E. integrifolia, E. jonesiae, E. macrophylla, E. merita, E. mirabilis, E. paludosa, E. radula, E. radulina, E. schreberi, E. sibirica, E. spectabilis, E. spinulosa, E. surculosa, E. ×herveyi
Synonyms Aster saxicastelli
Name authority (J. J. N. Campbell & Medley) G. L. Nesom: Phytologia 77: 261. (1995)
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