October 13, 2025
Author: Phyllis Root
Photographer: Kelly Povo
Summer has flown by. We’ve chased flowers, talked about our new book, and suddenly it’s fall and almost all that’s left to chase are the asters. Kelly’s been working hard to learn all twenty of Minnesota’s asters while I’ve been busy with other books and other commitments, and on a bright and glorious October morning when trees are beginning to turn we drive down to Lebanon Hills Regional Park so she can catch me up on the many asters that grow there.
Sunlight sparkles on the lake alonside the winding trail and boardwalk, lighting lily pads and grasses where quacking ducks gather. Hills rise up steeply on the other side of the trail, mossy and forested, and a cool breeze follows us. Many asters grow along the trail, and although most are either past their prime or gone to seed, Kelly has learned ways to tell them apart even when they are done blooming.
Awl aster is the only aster with many tiny leaves and white flowers (or flowers gone to seed) mostly all on one side of the stems.
Arrowleaf aster likes dry places, and, true to its name, has pointed leaves with little toothed edges. It’s the only aster with heart-shaped leaves that has white flowers.
Shining aster likes wet places and has shiny hairless leaves and pale-blue-to-white flowers.
Smooth blue aster likes drier places, has long, narrow, waxy-looking hairless leaves, and blue flowers. While some upper leaves may wrap slightly around the stem, they don’t wrap completely around the stem like crooked aster’s leaves do.
Crooked aster is the only Minnesota aster where the stem pierces the leaves. It grows on the wetter side of the trail, and if the flowers were blooming they’d be mostly pale blue
Short’s aster, with its blue flowers and long lance-shaped leaves that are hairy on the underside, grows at Lebanon Hills, but it must have been planted there since it grows naturally only in the Driftless Area of Minnesota. Still, a thrill to see it here.
Blue wood aster, with its small blue flowers, also has heart-shaped leaves with jagged points around the edges and upper leaves are more lance-shaped.
Large-leaf aster (I know this one because it used to grow under the ash trees that used to grow in my yard) has large, heart-shaped basal leaves and somewhat straggly pale bluish flowers.
Calico aster has hairy stems, velvety leaves that only have hairs along the mid-vein on the underside, and smallish white flowers with stalks less than half an inch long.
Panicled aster also has hairy stems, but unlike calico aster the hairs grow in lines. Its leaves are long and narrow, and the flowers are small and white.
New England aster when it’s blooming is easily recognizable by its deeply purplish flowers. Some of its lance-shaped leaved might have rounded tips.
A few flowers and grasses remain besides asters. Sunlight silvers the seeds of little bluestem on the path down to the lake, and along the boardwalk a single blue stiff gentian blooms. Planted? Perhaps, but still a sweet blue sign of fall among the asters.
See more of the Minnesota’s native asters we have seen!
