Shale-barren Aster (Symphyotrichum oblongifolium), white-flowered form

 

As always, click the photo to enlarge

Last Saturday, Shauna had to give a program on Bobcats to a group at the Arc of Appalachia's Highland Nature Sanctuary and following that we headed down to Lynx Prairie in Adams County to drum up some late-season flora. One species that was high on my list to photograph was Shale-barren Aster (Symphyotrichum oblongifolium). It is in peak bloom in early to mid-October, and we soon found ourselves admiring this large colony.

Shale-barren Aster is well-named, as can be seen from this image. It favors dry, rocky ground, and in Ohio often occurs on slopes like this. The plant is rhizomatous and can form sizable colonies. But in our state, it's a rarity and is listed as threatened by ODNR. Shale-barren Aster barely gets into southern Ohio and is known from only three-four counties and Adams County hosts most of the populations.

Here's the typical flowers of Shale-barren Aster. The rays are a showy pale purplish color, offset by bright yellow disk flowers.

PHOTO NOTE: Sometimes, to better isolate plants in crowded environments, I place a piece of black velvet behind the subject. That's what was done here. It also allows me to use a smaller aperture without penalty of creating a distracting image with lots of background clutter confusing the issue. This image was made at f/16, 1/125 second, and ISO 800. The only reason that the ISO was so high was due to breezy conditions and possible subject movement, but since very little cropping was required and the Canon R5 handles higher ISO settings well, it's not a problem. The lens was the stellar Canon 100mm f/2.8L macro.

As we walked towards the main colony, Shauna drew my attention to a white-flowered aster. Wow! It was an odd plant of Shale-barren Aster with snowy-white flowers! I had never seen, nor heard of such a thing. There were only three specimens, fairly close together and I suppose they could have essentially been the same plant, interconnected by rhizomes. This image shows the distinctive herbage, with alternate slightly clasping oblong leaves.

Here's a closeup of a flowering head. Not even a tinge of pink, purple or rose in those rays.

I've scouted about a bit and cannot find any references to white-flowered forms of Symphyotrichum oblongifolium. That's not to say it doesn't occur elsewhere, because anomalous white flowers regularly turn up in flowers that are ordinarily other colors. But it must not be common, or botanical manuals would mention it, and someone probably would have described it as a named form. The great botanist Merrit Fernald was big on noting variations such as this, yet his 1950 Gray's Manual of Botany makes no mention of white-flowered variants of Shale-barren Aster. He does note a forma roseoligulatus, which has rosy-colored rays. That, however, would be far more subtle and probably often insensibly grading into typical flower colors.

It will be interesting to see if these plants persist and expand, or eventually vanish.

NOTE: In botany, the equivalent of a subspecies in animals is termed a variety. Varieties are typically stable and distinctive variants but do not rise to the level of a species and are clearly closely related to the nominate, or typical variety. An example involving another aster would be Purple Swamp Aster (Symphyotrichum puniceum). It was long split into "subspecies": Symphyotrichum puniceum variety puniceum (the nominate, or typical, subspecies) and S. puniceum var. firmus. As sometimes happens, these two varieties were later shown to be distinct, and both are considered separate species now. Forms do not rise to that level and are minor variants. In the case of Purple Swamp Aster, two forms have been described, Symphyotrichum puniceum forma etiamalbus with white flowers, and forma rufescens with reddish flowers. These forms only different in flower color, thus are minor variations, and possibly best treated as occasional anomalies, not stable characters of the species, hence the forma designation. That's undoubtedly the case with the white-flowered Shale-barren Aster that we found.

Hike to Buzzardroost Rock

Last Sunday, October 25, dawned crisp and clear. I know, because I watched the sun came up as I drove to one of my favorite places in Ohio. This day was to be the last of the great fall days, weatherwise, and I wanted to be atop a certain conspicuous promontory soon after sunrise.

The sign above points the way to one of the best - and most significant - hikes in the state. The Buzzardroost Rock trail is about a 4.5 mile round trip, and worth every footfall. It is part of the vast Edge of Appalachia Preserve in Adams County. I toted my backpack full of camera gear along, and managed to make a few passable photos during the trek.

The scenery, from a fall leaf color perspective, was still stunning if slightly past peak. One of many great things about living in the vast eastern deciduous forest region is the conspicuous change of seasons. Nothing signals the changing of the guard like late autumn's brilliant burst of foliage. Of course, the color is but a short-lived harbinger of the coming of Old Man Winter, but the next few months of snow and cold will bring their own charms, and make the arrival of spring that much sweeter.

Not a bad canopy to have over one's head! I found myself constantly ogling the trees, searching for the perfect shot. Myriad options presented themselves, and scads of photos were taken, but I like this image as well as anything I clicked off on this pristine day. For those of a photographic bent, it was shot with the Canon 5D Mark III rigged with Canon's 17-40L wide-angle lens, using a focal length of 17 mm. ISO was set to 100, shutter speed was 1/200, and the lens was stopped down to f/8. I was lying on my back in the leaf litter to better get this perspective.

After a fairly speedy hike, I reached the trail's terminus and the namesake Buzzardroost Rock while the sun still hung low in the east. Limestone cliffs tower 70 feet above the forest floor, and the view from the rock is extraordinary. You MUST make this trip at some point.

Buzzardroost Rock is part of the sprawling Edge of Appalachia Preserve, which is co-managed by the Cincinnati Museum Center and the Ohio Chapter of The Nature Conservancy. The preserve now encompasses about 16,000 acres, and TNC regularly adds new parcels. Their Sunshine Ridge corridor project is an effort to link "The Edge" to the 65,000 acre Shawnee State Forest, which lies not far to the east.

The Shawnee/Edge region is the wildest landscape remaining in Ohio, and one of the most significant biological hotspots east of the Mississippi River in North America. Rare habitats and unusual flora and fauna abound, and I have featured scores of them on this blog over the years. The primary reason that so many natural history events - at least ones that I have had a hand in - take place down here is because of the natural diversity. Mothapalooza, Flora-Quest, numerous Ohio Ornithological Society conferences, and the Appalachian Butterfly Conference, are but a few. People attending Mothapalooza III next year will once again be wowed by this area, and one of the trips will journey to the very rock that you are now virtually visiting.

Ohio Brush Creek carves a whopping dimple through heavily forested terrain. This stream is one of Ohio's healthiest, in large part because so much of the buffering landscape has not been badly abused and is largely protected.

The straw-brown tufts of grass at cliff's edge may not look like much, but looks can be deceiving. This plant is Plains Muhlenbergia, Muhlenbergia cuspidata, an Ohio endangered species. It is one of numerous threatened and endangered species found on Edge of Appalachia properties.

On the return trip, I adopted a much more leisurely pace and explored habitats such as this prairie opening. Signs of former pasturing were present, but managers are working to return this spot, and many others, to barrens prairies. The botanical diversity in places such as this is fabulous, and botanists can lose themselves for hours searching about barrens prairies. It was a habitat similar to this that I made the photos of Stiff Gentians featured in the previous post.

While their collective voices have largely been muted, a number of singing insects still held on. This is a Treetop Bush Katydid, Scudderia fasciata. Many of the katydids seem to color up somewhat as fall fades, their increased reddish pigments serving to better allow the insects to blend with senescent fall foliage. This animal is a male, and note his ear, just below the knee on its foreleg. While that may seem to be an odd place to have one's ear, it serves these insects well. By having its ears as far apart as possible, the insect can better triangulate on sounds and pinpoint their source.

Asters are without doubt the botanical markers of fall's conclusion, and many species hold on past first frosts. This one is a rarity, the Shale-barren Aster, Symphyotrichum oblongifolium (Sim-fee-oh-tri-kum oh-blon-gih-fol-ee-um). Horticulturists have worked wonders with this species, and a cultivar is now widespread and available at many nurseries. Get one if you can. Shale-barren Aster is a pollinator magnet extraordinaire.

If you get the chance to visit the Edge of Appalachia Preserve, by all means do so. More information is available RIGHT HERE, and HERE.

Shale-barren Aster

From my office window, I can see these sprawling bush-like shale-barren asters, Symphyotrichum oblongifolium. These specimens are so luxuriant that I thought they might be something else, but apparently some nurseryman has worked cultivar magic and amped them up somehow. A few colleagues planted them last year in what we term our "butterfly garden".

So copious are the blossoms that, up close, it's like looking at a big violet-blue cloud. Unlike many cultivars, these asters apparently produce tons of nectar, as the plants were swarming with pollinators. I spent perhaps ten minutes stalking around the asters with my lens, and saw an incredible number of honey bees, in addition to the following buterflies: cabbage white, checkered skipper, common buckeye, monarch, pearl crescent, and Peck's skipper. Also a praying mantis, numerous syrphid flower flies, and a Virginia ctenucha moth.

Several monarchs dropped in and were working the flowers. Sustenance for their long flight to the high-elevation fir forests of Mexico.

I was pleased to see this checkered skipper busily nectaring. It's the first of this species I've seen on the property.

Feisty as always, three or four common buckeyes duked it out wth each other between turns at the flower bar.

Of course, wherever such abundance of tasty pollinators occur, there'll be predators such as this jumbo female Chinese mantis.

What's not to like? Asters are one of Nature's greatest expressions of fall. They enliven landscapes well after most other plants have gone to wither, and the little starlike flowers are nonpareil. There are several dozen native species and all look good, although shale-barren aster is hard to top in the looks department. Obviously they aren't just eye candy - animals galore flock to the flowers, and by having some asters in the corral, you'll be truly green.

NOTE: Thanks to Brian Parsons of the Holden Arboretum for setting me straight on aster ID. I never bothered to look at the details of these plants, being overly smitten with their pollinators, and foolishly assumed them to be New England asters, possibly the robust "purple dome" cultivar. Brian suggested checking the plants carefully, and a quick examination confirmed his suspicions. Thank you Brian!