European michaelmas daisy

Aster amellus is a hardy herbaceous perennial of the daisy family growing 20-60 cm tall from a short woody rhizome. Stems are erect, simple or branched only in the inflorescence, finely pubescent and rough to the touch. Basal leaves are spathulate to ovate-elliptic 4-10 cm long with rounded apices, narrowing into a winged petiole; stem leaves are sessile, lanceolate, and progressively smaller upward. The inflorescence is a loose, flat-topped corymb of long-stalked capitula 3-5 cm across; each head bears 15-30 violet-blue to lilac ray florets surrounding a dense disc of bright yellow tubular florets. Involucral bracts are imbricate in several rows with obtuse, often purplish tips. Fruits are flattened achenes crowned with a pappus of dirty-white bristles. Native to dry calcareous grasslands and rocky slopes of central and southern Europe, it flowers August to October.