Aster semiprostratus - Prostrate Aster

Prostrate Aster is a perennial herb, 5-15 cm tall, clustered, with stems and branches prostrate, branched from base, reddish, long white bristly. Leaves are linear-inverted-lanceshaped or inverted-lanceshaped to spoon-shaped, 1-3.2 x 0.2-0.4 cm, densely or sparsely bristly, with stalkless glands, base narrowed, margin entire, bristly-fringed with hairs. Flower-heads are daisy-like, borne singly at ends of stems or branches, or sometimes 2 or 3 in corymb-like clusters, 1.5-3 cm in diameter. Involucres are hemispheric, 1-1.5 cm in diameter; phyllaries in 3-series, green, lanceshaped, 6-8 x 0.8-1.8 mm. Ray florets are 25-35, blue or purplish, tube 2-2.9 mm, hairy, blade 1.2-1.5 x 0.1-0.2 cm; disk florets yellow, 4-6.3 mm. Achenes are straw-colored, becoming black mottled or nearly black, obovate, flattened, 1.8-2.5 mm. Prostrate Aster is found on dry open stony, gravelly, or sandy slopes, gravelly and sandy open or shrubby floodplains, alpine meadows, rock outcrops, at alitudes of 3200-4600 m, Qinghai, Nepal, West Himalaya. Flowering: June-August.