Go to Midwest Weeds Home Page

Bushy Aster, Rice Button Aster

Symphyotricum dumosum (L.) Nesom.

(formerly Aster dumosus L.)

Asteraceae (Sunflower Family)

▲ Mature plant, unmowed

▲ ▼  Mature plants in mowed buffalograss lawn

▲  uprooted plant from mowed lawn 

▲ ▼  flowers, with below showing seedheads on some inflorescences

Bushy Aster, Rice Button Asterr:

·    simple perennial, native weed in the Aster family (Asteraceae)

·    produces numerous small, pink daisy-like flowers in mid-late autumn; can be found in mowed lawns or non-crop areas, right-of-ways

·    has narrow linear, leaves which become almost scale-like once flowering commences

·    similar heath aster (Symphyotrichum ericoides) has slightly broader petals, fewer petals per inflorescence (8-20) and the bracts below the inflorescence end in a short, thickened point

·    similar white heath aster (Symphyotrichum pilosum) has narrow leaves that become almost linear at flowering; flowers are white to pale pink or pale purple and have 15-35 petals per inflorescence and the bracts below the inflorescence are long and tapered to a point that is not abruptly thickened

·    reproduces readily by seed

·    found in lawns, pastures, roadsides

·    Control:

o   grazing, cutting and mowing somewhat effective (can adapt and bloom under very short cutting height), tilling

o   chemical control mostly by postemergent herbicides applied before flowering begins

 

 Go to Midwest Weeds Home Page