Asters love the woodland and asters love the shore.

Here’s some in the pine grass.

What asters really love at this time of year is a bit of shade. Long after the asters in the open grassland have gone to seed and are dry stalks in the sun, asters bloom on under the pines, and even in the complex grassland communities formed by the sheltering shadow of a pine long gone.

This shadow creation is the role that big sagebrush, that other aster, plays in the hotter grasslands…

In the Grassland, Big Sage is the Forest

….creating shade to shelter other creatures…

…including its sister, aster herself. Aster is the queen of many worlds, and has the power of sun and shadow, in many forms. Look as well at the lovely regional variation between pink Okanagan asters (above) and blue ones in the Cariboo, at the feet of the Marble Mountains. She sure is a talkative one!