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Despite their long-enduring common names, most so-called native asters are technically not asters any more. They now taxonomically belong to the genus Symphyotrichum. While it is not hard to derive a short, catchy pop name from this newer category, the switch to “symphs” has never happened. It is, in fact, still necessary to look for these plants under Aster in some wildflower guides, and they are also often still labeled as such on market tags.
The Texas natives include annual aster, tall aster, Drummond’s aster, heath aster, spread-leaf aster, broad-leaf aster, hierba del marrano, rough-stemmed aster (which is rare), bushy aster, white aster and dwarf white aster, among many others. It takes a good eye, some practice and perhaps a bit of luck to sort out the identities of these natives, especially since they can easily cross-pollinate between species and even back-cross to produce hybrids that challenge definite identification by eye.
These native symphs are undervalued, most likely because of their unwelcome presence as weeds in lawns and plant beds. In ideal settings some can spread quickly in the course of a single year. In no case are their small blooms as flamboyant as the New England aster (S. novae-angliae) and the New York aster (S. novi-belgii), the sources of so many market cultivars. Unfortunately, these cultivars are not ideal for droughty Texas, and I have sometimes thought of them as “asters” courting disasters.
Their humbler but florally prolific Texas cousins deserve a closer look. They easily serve as appealing niche-fillers capable of cohabiting closely and trouble-free with most other garden plants.
One of my favorites is a persistent wildflower in my Oak Hill neighborhood (in southwest Austin). It is likely a variety of Drummond’s aster (S. drummondii, previously known as Aster texanus). Whatever symph these long, drooping perennials actually are, I welcome them in the windbreak of my front yard by watering them during prolonged dry spells and by dispersing their seeds.
They begin to reappear during winter. Often by the end of January their bright green serrated leaves form tightly bundled, close-to-the-earth “mats” designed to protect the new growth from still more winter weather. At this mid-winter point there is no hint of the tall branches to come during spring.
While this perennial’s foliage tends to be sparse, its small lavender-blue flowers are usually stunningly abundant and also include a showy seed-stage. As niche-fillers, my native symphs thrive even with long stretches of shade and they tolerate being ensconced in tight quarters with bigger companion plants.
They are extraordinarily tough, too. For instance, during the wicked weather of 2011 — the driest and second hottest on record for Texas — my wild symphs hung on despite their foliage looking as if singed by fire. With the first meager rain in autumn, a number of them, though nearly leafless, rushed out blooms. They did not look their best that autumn, of course, but they were a welcome pleasure after a year of such dispiriting weather. Symph-loving native bees — what few I saw in 2011 — seemed grateful, as well, for this sudden late-season, grand finale of blooms in the cooler shaded nooks of the windbreak.
If you have these wildflowers in your lawn or in an inappropriate flowerbed, think of them as serendipities — out-of-the-blue gifts that just need to be transplanted to a more suitable place where they can sprawl a bit and bloom. Several of my Oak Hill neighbors grow them as stand-alone attractions, while others use them as filler plants. One local homeowner cultivates them next to the front-entrance steps, where the wild symphs blend in perfectly as a second-level plantings.
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**ARCHIVED POST AUTHOR: scheick
