Dotted Blazingstar

Liatris punctata

Bird foodPollinator plant

Growing it

When	Flowers August to September
Type	wildflower
Sun	Full sun, partial shade
Water	Low
Soil	pH 6–8.5
Hardiness	zone 3–8
Mature height	0.4 m
Mature spread	0.3 m
Spacing	0.2 m
Years to maturity	3
Bloom	Aug–Sep
Flower colour	Purple White read from a published flora
In bloom	August September
Native to	AB, SK

narrow linear leaves about 20 cm long

Where it has been recorded

BothSpecimensObservations

218 squares of about 28 km, each holding at least one record. A square is not a claim that the plant grows throughout it, and an unshaded square is unrecorded rather than empty. Darker squares hold more records, which follows roads and towns as much as it follows the plant. 54 herbarium specimens and 721 field observations this project may redraw. A filled dot is a pressed sheet somebody can re-examine; a hollow ring is a photograph identified by community agreement. Where the dots are dense is where people have looked, not where the plant is commonest, and empty ground is unsurveyed rather than unoccupied. How this map is made.

Which ecoregions the records fall in

Mixed Grassland south AB / SK: 1034 records, high confidence
Moist Mixed Grassland south AB / SK: 690 records, high confidence
Fescue Grassland south AB: 346 records, high confidence
Aspen Parkland central AB / SK: 144 records, high confidence
Cypress Upland south AB / SK: 95 records, high confidence
Northern Continental Divide south AB: 85 records, high confidence
Boreal Transition central AB / SK: 5 records, low confidence

These are counts of records collected somewhere in the region, which is the resolution of the evidence: the map above shows where inside it. A region with 3 records is not the same claim as one with three hundred, so the count travels with the region. A region missing from this list means nobody has recorded it there, which is not the same as the plant being absent. Records within 900 m of a border count for neither side, because the border is not drawn finely enough to say which one they are on. Source: GBIF occurrence search + PRESERVED_SPECIMEN pass, retrieved 2026-08-24. Boundaries digitised from the National Ecological Framework for Canada v2.2 (Ecological Stratification Working Group 1995), simplified to about 900 m for display: an outline is accurate to roughly a kilometre, not to the metre. How these counts are made.

See every observation, live and current, on GBIF or iNaturalist.

Documented animals

40 documented relationships.

nectar for

American Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Anastoechus barbatus LaManna et al. 2020
Anise Swallowtail Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Anthophora urbana LaManna et al. 2020
Anthophora walshii Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Aphrodite Fritillary Acorn & Sheldon 2006
Aphrodite Fritillary Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Brown-belted Bumble Bee LaManna et al. 2020
Central Bumble Bee LaManna et al. 2020
Clouded Sulphur Acorn & Sheldon 2006
Common Checkered-Skipper Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Cryptic Bumble Bee Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Dingy Cutworm Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Erynnis afranius Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Golden Northern Bumble Bee LaManna et al. 2020
Great Spangled Fritillary Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Half-black Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Halictus confusus LaManna et al. 2020
Heriades carinata LaManna et al. 2020
Hunt's Bumble Bee Packer
Indiscriminate Cuckoo Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Lasioglossum albipenne LaManna et al. 2020
Megachile apicalis LaManna et al. 2020
Megachile perihirta LaManna et al. 2020
Melissa Blue LaManna et al. 2020
Monarch Acorn & Sheldon 2006
Nevada Bumble Bee Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Northern Amber Bumble Bee LaManna et al. 2020
Orange Sulphur Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Orange-banded Bumble Bee LaManna et al. 2020
Painted Lady Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Perdita swenki Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Red-belted Bumble Bee Packer
Tricoloured Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Two-ranked Bumble Bee LaManna et al. 2020
Variegated Fritillary Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
White-lined Sphinx Pohl et al. 2018
Woodland Skipper LaManna et al. 2020
Yellow-banded Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Yellow-fronted Bumble Bee LaManna et al. 2020

Also worth knowing

Safety

Toxicity not assessed, absence of a warning is not a guarantee of safety

Edible parts

Roots

Buying it

About $8–$16 per plant (estimate), usually from a native-plant nursery. Estimate (herb default); AB retail as of 2026

Where these numbers came from

Flower detail: not verified, a genus-level estimate