Blue Fleabane - Erigeron acer

Short to medium (8 to 20 inches) densely grey hairy plant. Flowerheads 10 to 15 mm with purple rays, borne in panicles, often flat topped; rays only a little longer than the disc florets. Flower bracts often purplish. Basal rosette leaves and lowest stem leaves stalked, uppermost stalkless, narrowly lanceolate with entire margins untoothed or shallowly toothed.

The hybrid with Conyza canadensis (syn. = Erigeron) has been recorded in VC55, in Leicester

Dull purplish mauve flowers, with ligules (ray florets) between 1mm and 4mm long; hairy lanceolate leaves

A photograph of the whole plant.  

Dry grassland, walls, well drained calcareous soils.

In flower during July and August.

Annual or biennial.

Widespread and fairly frequent in much of England and Wales, scarce elsewhere in Britain.

Occasional in Leicestershire and Rutland. In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in 30 of the 617 tetrads.