Fleabane, Blue

Information on Blue Fleabane

Common Name: Blue Fleabane
Scientific Name: Erigeron acer
Irish Name: Lus gorm na ndreancaidí
Family Group: Asteraceae
Distribution: View Map (Courtesy of the BSBI)
Flowering Period


Click for list of all flowering by month
Blue Fleabane is not easily confused with other wild plants on this web site.


This is a species which is not easy to find in Ireland, being confined to banks, sandy soil, disturbed places and walls towards the south-east. Slender, erect, hairy plants, they reach 60 cm high, bearing heads of flowers in quite loose panicles from June to August. Each flowerhead (12-18 mm across) is made up of pale mauve ray florets encircling a little cottony tuft of yellow disc florets which is shorter than the surrounding ray florets. The result is like a colourful little shaving-brush on a stiff purplish stem along which are a few narrow, unstalked, lanceolate leaves. The lower leaves are in a rosette and are stalked and spoon-shaped. The seeds are borne in an achene - little parachutes sail off into the breeze distributing themselves to produce both annuals and biennials. This is a native plant and it belongs to the Asteraceae family.      

I found and photographed this plant while looking for something else – it often happens – in Inistioge, County Kilkenny in 2011. 

If you are satisfied you have correctly identified this plant, please submit your sighting to the National Biodiversity Data Centre

In Northern Ireland, Blue Fleabane is a protected species. 

Fleabane, Blue
Fleabane, Blue
Fleabane, Blue