Aster albescens (DC.) Wall. ex Hand.-Mazz.

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Aster albescens' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/aster/aster-albescens/). Accessed 2025-03-24.

Family

Asteraceae

Genus

Aster

Synonyms

Amphiraphis albescens DC.
Microglossa albescens (DC.) C.B.Clarke
Sinosidus albescens (DC.) G.L.Nesom

Other taxa in genus

Glossary

alternate: Attached singly along the axis not in pairs or whorls.
compound: Made up or consisting of two or more similar parts (e.g. a compound leaf is a leaf with several leaflets).
entire: With an unbroken margin.
indeterminate: A form of inflorescence in which the outer or lower flowers open first and the inflorescence axis continues to grow. (Cf. determinate.)

References

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Aster albescens' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/aster/aster-albescens/). Accessed 2025-03-24.

A developing inflorescence of Aster albescens at Utrecht University Botanic Garden, The Netherlands (September 2023). The plant originated from 3300 m in Garwhal, India. Image Connor Smith.

Editorial Note

Bean treated this species under the name Microglossa albescens.

A plant with semi-woody, erect stems, growing in tufts about 3 ft high, very pithy, and clothed with a grey down. Leaves alternate, lance-shaped, 2 to 5 in. long, 1⁄2 to 1 in. wide, tapered to both ends, the margins entire or with minute teeth, grey and downy beneath. Flower-heads 1⁄3 in. in diameter, produced during July, in compound corymbs 3 to 6 in. across, terminating the current season’s growth. Ray-florets about fourteen, narrow, pale lilac-blue or bluish white; disk-flowers yellow.

A variable species, which, understood in a wide sense, ranges from the north-west Himalaya to Kansu, up to 12,000 ft; introduced to the Chiswick gardens of the Royal Horticultural Society about 1840. The shoots made during the summer die back considerably during the winter, almost to the ground in severe seasons. The flowers are of a rather indeterminate blue, and the plant has no particular merit except in flowering in late summer. Propagated by cuttings of the young growths in heat, or by dividing old plants.

A plant raised from seeds collected by Beer, Lancaster and Morris in east Nepal in 1971 is figured in Bot. Mag., n.s., t.878.