From “Blue and Purple Asters or Starworts” in Nature’s Garden: An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and Their Insect Visitors (1900) by Neltje Blanchan:
“Evolution teaches us that thistles, daisies, sunflowers, asters, and all the triumphant horde of Composites were once very different flowers from what we see today. Through ages of natural selection of the fittest among their ancestral types, having finally arrived at the most successful adaptation of their various parts to their surroundings in the whole floral kingdom, they are now overrunning the earth.
“Doubtless the aster’s remote ancestors were simple green leaves around the vital organs, and depended upon the wind… to transfer their pollen. Then some rudimentary flower changed its outer row of stamens into petals, which gradually took on color to attract insects and insure a more economical method of transfer….
“As flowers and insects developed side by side, and there came to be a better and better understanding between them of each other’s requirements, mutual adaptation followed. The flower that offered the best advertisement, as the Composites do, by its showy rays; that secreted nectar in tubular flowers where no useless insect could pilfer it; that fastened its stamens to the inside wall of the tube where they must dust with pollen the underside of every insect, unwittingly cross-fertilizing the blossom as he crawled over it; that massed a great number of these tubular florets together where insects might readily discover them and feast with the least possible loss of time — this flower became the winner in life’s race. Small wonder that our June fields are white with daisies and the autumn landscape is glorified with goldenrod and asters….
“[The} Late Purple Aster, so-called, or Purple Daisy… begins to display its purplish-blue, daisy-like flower-heads early in August, and farther north may be found in dry, exposed places only until October. Rarely the solitary flowers, that are an inch across or more, are a deep, rich violet. The twenty to thirty rays which surround the disk, curling inward to dry, expose the vase-shaped, green, shingled cups that terminate each little branch….”
From “The Fleets” in Acis in Oxford and Other Poems by Robert Finch:
This year the autumn is a restless sea
Of weaving crests of waving goldenrod
And swirling billows of the purple aster
Whose foaming mauve tinges the tumbling air;
Across the hills and hollows of that ocean
A fleet of trees rides, with slow yellow sails
And crimson pennons ribboning the wind,
Toward the harbour of the horizon’s bar
Where an invincible navy waits at anchor,
A fleet of clouds, unfurling sails of snow.
Hello!
This is the second of two posts with photographs of purple Aromatic Asters (Symphyotrichum oblongifolium) from Oakland Cemetery that I took in October; the first post is Painted Daisies and Aromatic Asters (1 of 2).
These flowers are among the first asters to bloom across Oakland’s autumn landscape, typically appearing in September then expanding and tumbling throughout their surroundings over subsequent weeks. Their blooming time coincides with a similarly sized white aster — probably Tanacetum parthenium or a close relative — whose photographs I’ll feature in the next two posts after this one. The simultaneous appearance of these two variants, one with purple flowers and one with white flowers, is one of the first signs that we’re moving from later summer to early fall, their abundance marking that seasonal change just like the appearance of daffodils and early irises usher in spring. We might think of them as transitional plants, as they bloom and then are gone before even later blooming mums and asters take over the gardens as the oak and maple tree leaves start changing colors.
For this post, I wanted to show how these Aromatic Asters are used in memorial displays like those at Oakland. Their mix of wild, native, and naturalized variants makes them especially appropriate historically: asters of various kinds — especially those that bloom late in the year — fill in the spaces where earlier flowers have receded and have been used for that purpose for centuries. Aromatic (or similar) Asters that produce a large mass of purple flowers connected by stems that twist and turn in all directions create a muted yet colorful contrast as they mound upward then bend forward in waves. In Victorian, memorial, and cultural symbolism, the color purple is often used to convey dignity, respect, and remembrance, and lighter shades like those of Aromatic Asters encompass those meanings while creating a serene contemplative space.
If you look closely at some of the photos where I’ve zoomed in on the blossoms, you may also be able to see how that purple/violet color gets reflected in the memorial stones and gravel nearby. This reflected visual effect — one that is apparent even on overcast days — is intense enough that it comes through in photographs and is equally compelling when observed in person: studying the scene gives you a sense that you’re enveloped in the color purple, regardless of where you stand, and with all its symbolic meanings. The positioning of these asters — that is, where Oakland’s landscapers chose to plant them — is likely intentional, as none of the growth intrudes upon the memorial markers but instead complements them in terms of both color and texture. These visual effects are even more remarkable, it seems, since each individual flower is less than an inch in diameter, yet their combined density creates a purple tide that can be seen from every vantage point.
Thanks for reading and taking a look!
