''Eurybia glauca'' is a North American species of flowering plants in the family

Asteraceae The family Asteraceae, alternatively Compositae, consists of over 32,000 known species of flowering plants in over 1,900 genera within the order Asterales. Commonly referred to as the aster, daisy, composite, or sunflower family, Compositae w ...

, called the gray aster. It is native to the western United States, primarily in

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Tiguex , OfficialLang = None , Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ker ...

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...

, and

Wyoming Wyoming () is a U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the south ...

, with a few populations in

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyom ...

and

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbi ...

. ''Eurybia glauca'' is a perennial herb or

subshrub A subshrub (Latin ''suffrutex'') or dwarf shrub is a short shrub, and is a woody plant. Prostrate shrub is a related term. "Subshrub" is often used interchangeably with "bush".Jackson, Benjamin, Daydon; A Glossary of Botanic Terms with their Der ...

up to 70 centimeters (28 inches) tall from a woody

rhizome In botany and dendrology, a rhizome (; , ) is a modified subterranean plant stem that sends out roots and shoots from its nodes. Rhizomes are also called creeping rootstalks or just rootstalks. Rhizomes develop from axillary buds and grow hori ...

. The plant produces flower heads numerous heads (sometimes over 100) in a flat-topped array. Each head contains 8-19 lavender ray florets surrounding 12-32 yellow or purplish disc florets.

Taxonomy

''Eurybia glauca'' was first described and given its first name as ''Eucephalus glaucus'' by the famous botanist

Thomas Nuttall Thomas Nuttall (5 January 1786 – 10 September 1859) was an England, English botany, botanist and zoologist who lived and worked in America from 1808 until 1841. Nuttall was born in the village of Long Preston, near Settle, North Yorkshire, S ...

. He described it in a paper read to the society on 2 October 1840, but published in 1841 in ''Transactions of the American Philosophical Society''. It was given a brief description and noted as growing, "Towards the sources of the Platte, and in the Rocky Mountains." In 2004

Luc Brouillet Luc Brouillet (born 1954) is a Canadian botanist. He has focused his research on genetics of the Asteraceae family, flora of Quebec-Labrador and Newfoundland, and has been significantly involved in the ''Flora of North America The ''Flora of N ...

published a paper arguing for its reclassification as ''Herrickia glauca'' along with a general reorganization of species into a restored genus, '' Herrickia''. However, as of 2023

Plants of the World Online Plants of the World Online (POWO) is an online database published by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. It was launched in March 2017 with the ultimate aim being "to enable users to access information on all the world's known seed-bearing plants by ...

(POWO) accepts the 1995 description by

Guy L. Nesom Guy L. Nesom (born August 2, 1945)''U.S. Public Records Index'' Vol 2 (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.), 2010. is an American writer and botanist. Nesom received his Ph.D. in systematic botany from the University of North Carolina in 19 ...

as ''Eurybia glauca''.

Range

''Eurybia glauca'' primarily grows west of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, northern New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah. It also is found through much of Wyoming with a population known from one county in Idaho and other small populations in Montana.Biota of North America Program 2014 county distribution map, ''Herrickia glauca''
/ref> Nesom, G. L. (2009)
Taxonomic overview of ''Eurybia'' sect. ''Herrickia'' (Asteraceae: Astereae). Journal of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas 3(1): 161–167.
includes distribution map on page 164, as ''Eurybia glauca''

References

{{Taxonbar, from1=Q21254136, from2=Q15560651 Astereae Flora of Arizona Flora of Colorado Flora of Montana Flora of New Mexico Flora of Utah Flora of Wyoming Plants described in 1840