climbing aster, Aster carolinianus

What is it about the South and its vines? They seem to have a lot more of them than we do up here. But an aster? These flower heads certainly look right, except that the color fades as they age. The rest of the plant is different enough from other asters to earn its own genus. These have flexible stems that clamber up and over other plants. The leaves you see here are the blackberry which was being taken advantage of by this one. And they are adventitious in a more technical sense. The stems can root where they touch the ground, sometimes creating colonies of climbing asters. New shoots stay green when the older ones fade, and in that sense these are evergreen. Climbing aster grows on the coastal plain in FL, GA, MS, NC, and SC. Everglades National Park, Taylor Co FL, 10/20/15. Aster family, Asteraceae.