What is this?

14 years ago

I posted this on the weeds forum, but I know there is always a lot more action here and you might be able to help me!! Please open link for image.

I just found about a dozen of these within a 2' radius in one of the garden beds. Not near the boundaries of the neighbors and just can't imagine where it's come from. They are 3 to 4 inches tall, must have grown in the past couple weeks (even through some freezing temps.) The leaves have a stiff fuzzy texture and as you can see there is sturdy stem and a tuber. The leaves nor the tuber have any remarkable smell or fragrance/odor. We've been gardening many years and we are stumped.

Here is a link that might be useful:

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Comments (5)

midnightsmum (Z4, ON)
14 years ago
Oh, Ehm, errr. I am not sure, but I will look it up tomorrow in my books. I suspect if you snap the rather vigorous tubers, they will be orange in the centre. Very agressive things. GET RID OF THEM!!!!!

Nancy - but I'll check, just in case.
evie4
Original Author
14 years ago
Thanks for checking Nancy, I did snap it open and it's just white inside. But I'm suspicious at how many there are and how tough they seem to be...gotta a feeling it ain't good!
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Annie
14 years ago
Some kind of wild aster maybe?
They can be VERY invasive.
Chopping them out won't work if they are asters, as every tiny piece can regrow into a plant. Try to get down deep enough to get every piece.

Zooks!
evie4
Original Author
14 years ago
My husband was beyond curious and went and looked at noxious weeds in our area. We think it is a Meadow Knapweed. I took them out today. The one I posted was the exception, the rest had long tap roots up to 6 inches long! I carefully took them all out. We are convinced they are evil! :0)
Annie
14 years ago
Yup, sounds like a wild Aster alright.

Those roots are what makes them invasive as heck. Besides that, they drop teeny, tiny seeds every winter and make babies.

They are beautiful flowers though in late summer. I allow them to grow at the edge of the yard where the woodlands begin. Still, I have to cull them out of the irises in front of them.

Here is the description in my North American Wildlife book,
Pg 451:

"Blue Wood Aster (Aster cordifolius)
SIZE: 1-4 ft tall; flowerhead 1/2-1 in. wide.
WHAT TO LOOK FOR: flowerhead with short blue or violet ray flowers around yellow central disk; clusters in branching stems; (lower) leaves heart-shaped (cordate), toothed, hairy (upper leaves are oval to lanceolate and smaller).
HABITAT: open woods, thickets, clearings.
In Bloom: Aug-Oct."

These like moist, but well-drained soil where there is plenty of leaf mulch or sandy soils that holds moisture. They send out stolens from parent plants to make new plants - colonizing an area, AND drop seeds. They are self-pollinating hermaphrodites.

It could be the Leafy Aster, lance-shaped leaves, or Stiff Aster(grows in dry areas).

There is the White Heath Aster (we have these growing up in the meadow; beautiful, fragrant white flowers in spring. Their leaves have a smell much like that of turpentine. Their stems are so tough that they can break mowing blades (we found this out) and their stubble can puncture tires (ditto experiences). The pioneers used the dried stems to make crude brooms. (those Cinnamon-scented brooms you can buy around Christmas are made of this aster's dried stems.

New England Asters (1-7 ft tall) with sticky stems, lanced leaves clasped to the stems.

There are many more - over 600 species that show up in people's gardens, with more than 150 of them native to North America alone.

What none of the websites selling them tell you is how invasive they are.
I believe you have the Blue Wood Aster. We have many different species growing on our property in one place or another.

Below is a link to see the flowers of the Blue Wood Aster:

Here is a link that might be useful: Native North American Blue Wood Asters