Eurybia radulina

Roughleaf aster

Family: Asteraceae · Type: perennial · Native

Roughleaf aster is a California native perennial found in northwestern California, the Cascade Range, northern and central Sierra Nevada, San Francisco Bay Area, southern Coast Ranges, and northern Channel Islands in dry forest, oak and pine woodlands, and brushy slopes at elevations of 100 to 1,600 meters. Flowering from July to September, this plant produces white to pale violet ray flowers in clusters, creating delicate daisy-like bloom heads 8 to 13 millimeters long. Growing with ascending to erect stems 10 to 70 centimeters tall, it has dense long soft wavy hairs covering its stems. Its cauline leaves are ovate to elliptic, 3 to 8 centimeters long, with coarsely serrated edges and a wedge-shaped base that often clasps the stem, feeling rough to the touch on the upper surface. The plant spreads through somewhat woody rhizomes, with outer phyllaries that are green in the distal third and sometimes purple-margined.

Habitat: dry forest, oak/pine woodland, brushy slopes

Bloom period: Jul-Sep

Elevation: 100-1600 m

Bioregions: NW, CaR, n&ampc SN, SnFrB, SCoR, n ChI

California counties: Humboldt, Tuolumne, Sonoma, Del Norte, Plumas, San Luis Obispo, Shasta, Placer, Amador, Calaveras, Contra Costa, El Dorado, Lake, Mariposa, Napa, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Nevada, Sierra, Trinity, Yuba, Alameda, Santa Clara, Butte, Santa Cruz, San Mateo, Siskiyou, Marin, Mendocino, Monterey, Tehama, Solano, Lassen, Madera, Yolo, San Benito

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.