What Are These Flowers? The flowers pictured below have recently come into bloom in Central Indiana. I have found them growing wild at local parks and they seem to be quite common. The flowers measure about half an inch across and the plants stand about three or four feet tall. The flowers have no scent but seem attractive to several insect species for their nectar/pollen. They may actually be two different colors of the same species or perhaps closely related species, as they look very similar and grow in close proximity to each other. Any help in identifying these flowers would be greatly appreciated.
The one on the right is almost certainly an Aster. The one on the left may be an Aster or an Erigeron, but is likely an Aster. They are almost certainly different species. However, you've already keyed in on the difficulty in identifying Aster and Erigeron - most species within both genera look very similar to members of both the same and the other genus. To give a proper identification, the kind of information that we would need to know include leaf shape, size, petiole length, leaf margin, how glandular it is, height, and so on - and that list is about twice as long for characteristics of the flowers. Generally, these plants are identified in the field with identification keys and the plants on hand, or in the herbarium with close comparison to previously collected specimens. Apologies for not being able to be definitive.
