Leafy Aster

Symphyotrichum foliaceum

KeystoneLarval hostBird foodPollinator plant

Growing it

When	Flowers July to September
Type	wildflower
Sun	Partial shade, full shade
Water	Medium, high
Soil	pH 5.5–7
Hardiness	zone 3–7
Mature height	0.6 m
Mature spread	0.675 m
Spacing	0.45 m
Years to maturity	3
Bloom	Jul–Sep
Flower colour	Purple not verified, a genus-level estimate
In bloom	July August September
Native to	AB

lance-shaped leaves about 8 cm long

Where it has been recorded

BothSpecimensObservations

24 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. 22 herbarium specimens and 34 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

Northern Continental Divide south AB: 50 records, high confidence
Eastern Continental Ranges central AB: 16 records, medium confidence
Western Alberta Upland central AB: 3 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

19 documented relationships.

nectar for

Black-tailed Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Brown-tailed Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Central Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Drone Fly Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Half-black Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
High Country Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Indiscriminate Cuckoo Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Lapposyrphus lapponicus Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Mylitta Crescent Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Red-belted Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Red-tailed Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Sitka Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Two-ranked Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Western Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Woodland Skipper Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Yellow Cuckoo Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Yellow-fronted Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org

pollen for

Black-tailed Bumble Bee Clements & F. L. Long 1923
Yellow-fronted Bumble Bee Clements & F. L. Long 1923

Also worth knowing

Safety

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

Buying it

About $8–$16 per plant (estimate), usually stocked by garden centres. Estimate (herb default); AB retail as of 2026

Where these numbers came from

Flower detail: not verified, a genus-level estimate