Aster

The China aster is the only species in its genus, a member of the aster family native to China and Korea. It is an annual or biennial with one upright, mostly unbranched stem between twenty centimetres and a metre tall, leaves with serrated edges, and a single large flower head at the top whose rays are reddish purple in the wild. Grown in China for some two thousand years and in Europe from 1728 or earlier, it has been bred into flowers of many colours and heights, single and double, and is now planted worldwide in cottage gardens and for cutting, flowering from late summer into autumn. Greek myth told that asters were born from the tears of Virgo, falling to earth as stardust, and Cunningham writes that the classical Greeks set the flower on temple altars on feast days, holding it sacred to all the gods; they also burned it to drive off snakes and used it against snakebite. In medieval France and Germany its leaves were burned against evil spirits, and in Germany the flower was used, like a daisy, as a love oracle. Love is its chief work in magic: it goes into love sachets, a bloom is carried to win love, and it is grown in a garden while wishing for love. It is also used for clarity, intuition, inspiration, truth and psychic work.