rough blazing star

Liatris aspera (rough blazing star) attracts bees and butterflies, in particularly Monarch butterflies. 

The liatris genus has its share of “pollinator magnets,” and there’s one that thrives in just about any soil type. Rough blazing star is a wildflower that is found in the mid to eastern United States. It is native to the Great Lakes region where is occurs in dryish soils on prairies, open wood, glades, meadows and along roads and railroad tracks. It features rounded, fluffy, deep rose-purple flower heads which are crowded into long, terminal flower spikes atop erect, rigid, leafy flower stalks. It blooms (late summer to fall later than most other Liatris. Liatris belongs to the aster family, with each flower head having only fluffy disk flowers (resembling “blazing stars”) and no rays.