''Eurybia wasatchensis'' 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 Wasatch aster. It has been found only in the state of

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 ...

in the western United States. ''Eurybia wasatchensis'' is a perennial herb up to 60 centimeters (2 feet) tall from a woody underground

caudex A caudex (plural: caudices) of a plant is a stem, but the term is also used to mean a rootstock and particularly a basal stem structure from which new growth arises.pages 456 and 695 In the strict sense of the term, meaning a stem, "caudex" is m ...

. The plant produces flower heads in groups of 2-20 or more heads. Each head contains 13–21 white or pink ray florets surrounding 26–43 yellow disc florets.

Taxonomy

''Eurybia wasatchensis'' was first described and named as a subspecies, ''Aster glaucus'' var. ''wasatchensis'', by Marcus E. Jones in 1895. Further study by the famous botanist

Per Axel Rydberg Per Axel Rydberg (July 6, 1860 – July 25, 1931) was a Swedish-born, American botanist who was the first curator of the New York Botanical Garden Herbarium. Biography Per Axel Rydberg was born in Odh, Västergötland, Sweden and emigrated to t ...

lead to him publish a book where it was classified as a species with the name ''Eucephalus wasatchensis'' in 1917. Eight years later Sidney Fay Blake wrote in favor of its inclusion in the large ''

Aster Aster or ASTER may refer to: Biology * ''Aster'' (genus), a genus of flowering plants ** List of ''Aster'' synonyms, other genera formerly included in ''Aster'' and still called asters in English * Aster (cell biology), a cellular structure shap ...

'' genus. 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 being renamed ''Herrickia horrida'' along with a general reorganization of three other species into a restored genus, ''

Herrickia ''Herrickia'' is a North American genus of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae, native to the western United States. All the species were included in ''Aster'' before molecular studies triggered the splitting of that genus into several dist ...

''. This is the classification used in the

Flora of North America The ''Flora of North America North of Mexico'' (usually referred to as ''FNA'') is a multivolume work describing the native plants and naturalized plants of North America, including the United States, Canada, St. Pierre and Miquelon, and Greenla ...

. 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) and the USDA

Natural Resources Conservation Service Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), formerly known as the Soil Conservation Service (SCS), is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) that provides technical assistance to farmers and other private landowners an ...

PLANTS database (PLANTS) accept 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 wasatchensis''.

Range

Though it has sometimes been reported from the state of

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 ...

, POWO and PLANTS both report it is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

to the state of Utah.Biota of North America Program 2014 county distribution map, ''Herrickia wasatchensis''
/ref>

References

{{Taxonbar, from1=Q21254207, from2=Q50827354, from3=Q15561005 Astereae Flora of Utah Plants described in 1895