Liatris cymosa
Encyclopedia
Liatris cymosa, also known as Aggie-land gayfeather or branched blazing star, is a plant species in the aster family Asteraceae
Asteraceae
The Asteraceae or Compositae , is an exceedingly large and widespread family of vascular plants. The group has more than 22,750 currently accepted species, spread across 1620 genera and 12 subfamilies...

 and genus Liatris
Liatris
Liatris is a genus of ornamental plants in the Asteraceae family, native to North America, Mexico, and the Bahamas. These plants are used as a popular summer flowers for bouquets.They are perennials, surviving the winter in the form of corms....

. It is native to east central Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

 in North America, where it is found in habitats such as post oak woodlands, fields, fence rows, woodland openings and edges, in clay soils. It blooms in mid to late summer with purple flower heads. It is of conservation concern.

It grows from rounded or sometimes elongated corms, that produce stems 20 to 75 centimeters tall. The upright growing stems have apressed hairs that point in the same direction. The basal and cauline leaves have one nerve. The leaves are long and thin, ranging from 8 to 12 centimeters long and 2 to 5 millimeters wide. The foliage is mostly hairless or may have some hairs on the margins; the leaves are gradually reduced in size as they ascend the stem or abruptly reduced half way up the stem. The flowers are in dense heads with 20 to 25 florets, and the heads have stems that are 20 to 70 millimeters long. The heads are produced in loose cyme-like clusters of 2 to 20, sometimes more, terminating the widely branched stems. The seed are produced in cypselae fruits that are 6 to 7 millimeters long with feathery pappi.
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