Mountain aster

Oclemena acuminata, the whorled wood aster or mountain aster, is a perennial herb of the aster family native to cool, moist woodlands of eastern North America from Newfoundland and Quebec south through the Appalachians to Georgia. It grows from creeping rhizomes, producing slender, often zigzag stems 30-90 cm tall. The thin, dark-green leaves are lanceolate to elliptic with sharply acuminate tips and toothed margins, 6-15 cm long, and are arranged in apparent pseudo-whorls of three to six at intervals along the stem. Loose, flat-topped corymbs of daisy-like heads appear in late summer and autumn; each head has 9-20 narrow white to pale-pinkish ray florets surrounding a small yellow disc that ages to dull pink. It favours acidic, humus-rich soils in shaded forests, often along streams and on north-facing slopes.