Photo at right of alpine aster from Paradise Park, Mt. Hood Wilderness........August
2, 1992.
Alpine aster is a delightful and well behaved aster for the home rockery or front of a border. The stems are ascending to decumbent, measuring from 3-40 cm long. The herbage ranges from glabrous to densely covered with minute hairs below the flower heads. The leaves are mainly in a basal cluster with a few much-reduced leaves on the stems. The basal leaves are 2-10 cm long, 1-15 mm wide, and 3-5 veined. They are linear to linear-oblanceolate in shape tapering to the petioles. The margins are entire.
The flower heads are solitary atop the stems. There are 10-40 lavender to violet or occasionally white ray flowers measuring from 7-15 mm long. The involucres are 5-13 mm high with the bracts layered like shingles and often with purplish margins (See upper photo.) The margins of the bracts are often lined with minute hairs. The central disk flowers are yellow.
Variety alpigenus has basal leaves which are largely oblanceolate with obtuse to rounded tips. The largest leaves are usually greater than 5 mm wide and may measure up to 15 cm long and 15 mm wide. The stems are up to 20 cm tall.
Alpine aster is a wildflower of open meadows and gravelly slopes from subalpine to alpine habitats.
Aster alpigenus is found from Washington south to California, and eastward to western Montana, western Wyoming and northeastern Nevada.
Variety alpigenus may be found in the Olympic and Cascade Mts. south to about latitude 44 degrees in Deschutes County in Oregon. It is also found in the Wallowa Mts. of northeastern Oregon.
In the Columbia River gorge, it may be found between the elevations of 3100'-3500' on the higher peaks in the western Gorge.
