Saturday Photo: The Stars of Autumn

A little rain and the asters bloom in the woods. Last year, when August was wet and I was walking every day across the mountain, I remember seeing clouds of them at the edge of wild spaces. This year it has been considerably drier and they only began to bloom after a good rain we had two weeks ago. Now they are everywhere.

According to my wildflower references, there are two kinds of asters which grow in a broad band across the north-eastern US and southern Canada from Ontario to the Maritimes. One source says the pink-purple New England aster is more common, and that the New York aster--Aster novi-belgii--is rare in southern Ontario. But what seems to be growing wild here is the latter, with its pale mauve petals and yellow-orange center.

When I started writing this blog in June the columbine were like shooting stars in the garden. Now the appropriatedly-named asters are the ones giving a stellar performance.