This native perennial has erect, branching stems usually 6-18 inches tall. The leaves are oblong to broadly linear with tapered, clasping bases and pointed tips. The lower leaves are from 1-2 inches long and less than 1/2 inch wide, becoming smaller above and often reduced to small bracts at the tips of branches where the few to many flower heads arise. The margins have short, stiff hairs which are pressed flat against the surface of the leaf edge. Each flower head is about 1 inch wide with up to 30 bluish-purple, rarely white, petal-like ray florets surrounding the yellow to reddish-purple central disk.
Found in drier, upland sites in prairies, flowering in September and October. At Neale Woods, Aromatic Aster is rare. Only a single plant cluster has been found in the Knull Prairie restoration near Millard Observatory.
Aromatic Aster is not easy to separate from other blue-flowered species except Silky Aster (Aster sericius), a local prairie species seen in the past (not recently) in Knull Prairie. Silky Aster has distinctive leaves covered with soft, white hairs, giving them a silvery green appearance.
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