Plant Profile: Liatris pilosa

Sandhills Blazing Star, belonging to the Sunflower family, is a slender, upright perennial herb native to the Eastern United States. This plant is celebrated for its striking spikes of purple flowers that bloom from summer into fall. It thrives in full sunlight and prefers dry, sandy, or rocky soils with excellent drainage, demonstrating resilience to both heat and drought. Its natural habitats include longleaf pine sandhills, streams, pine barrens, sand ridges, and various xeric forests and woodlands, as well as fields and roadside banks.

The plant's upright growth adds vertical interest to gardens, attracts butterflies and other pollinators, and serves well as a cut flower. Sandhills Blazing Star can be propagated from seeds or corms, though seeds typically take longer to establish.

Taxonomically, L. pilosa has often been incorrectly associated with L. graminifolia var. elegantula, leading to some plants labeled as L. pilosa actually being L. elegantula. The erect stems are green, featuring fine darker green ridges, and can grow between 1 to 3 feet tall. Leaves emerge both at the base and along the stem, decreasing in size towards the tip, with the undersides possibly covered in fine hairs. The flower heads form on a spike, consisting of 7 to 10 florets, each containing small, tubular pink-purple blossoms with rounded petal tips. Long-tongued bees and butterflies are known to visit these flowers.

In terms of pests and diseases, Sandhills Blazing Star faces no significant issues but is sensitive to wet soil and tends to become leggy in shaded conditions.

For further details on Liatris, additional resources are available.