Recently spent a weekend in Vermont, driving the supply car for my motorcycle gang (!) and hiking Mt. Abraham. This calico aster was near our cabin, but it’s also common in my usual territory.

Aster family. Native. The central disk starts out pale yellow but matures to brown or red-violet–- this color variety is evidently the source of the calico name. Rays can be white or lavender-tinged. Primarily a woodland species.

Calico Aster, Starved Aster (Aster Lateriflorus)

Bonus photo: Morning clouds down in the valley. Vermont is really charming and apparently hardly anyone lives there, or at least that’s the feeling you get once you get off the highway. No wonder leaf-peeping in Vermont is so popular.