Aster frikartii “Monch”

It’s a classic fall flower, and these are the stages of the buds.

Stage 1 is appropriately named the Stage 1 Bud.

Stage too is when the sepals have pulled far enough back that the petals are beginning to be visible. This stage is called Petaluma Charlie, and is named for a famed roadside diner where the buds grew wild.

The third stage is where the petals have poked through entirely but the face of the flower has not yet opened. It’s so colorful!

And now the flower is fully open and you can see that it is a classic disk flower from the Asteraceae family. We call this stage the Flower.