Low lying plant with pale purplish flowers, most wilting. Found along the west dyke trail in Richmond. I know it's a kind of aster, but can't nail an exact ID.
That's never been reported in British Columbia (or seemingly in North America) before... Search Criteria and Plants Profile for Aster amellus (Italian aster) Compare yours against the species of Symphyotrichum , nicely photographed in the Washington Herbarium database: Species Descriptions - Burke Herbarium Image Collection Side note: there are only 2 species of Aster prominent in North America. Aster alpinus (which does occur natively in British Columbia) and Aster tataricus which is an introduced European aster in eastern USA. All the rest of what were formerly consider as Aster in North America have been placed in their own genera, such as Symphyotrichum and Eurybia, whereas many of the European aster species remain as bona fide Aster.
Well, technically, there are about 15 1-petaled flowers and maybe about 15 0-petaled flowers in each flowering head... but yes, if going through a key, there will often be something like (10-)15(-20) ray florets in an instance like this (meaning a range of 10-20, typically around 15). Each "flower" in this case represents about 30 flowers tightly clustered together with the overall appearance of a single flower.
