Aster, September flower

September is often associated with asters and morning glory flowers, because these are the birth flowers of those born in September. I will mainly focus on aster here, as it's much more widespread across Europe and steeped in long folklore traditions going back to the Middle Ages and long before. 

Aster is brightly coloured, often purple or pink, sometimes yellow, blue, red and white. All of them have shiny yellow centres and they attract wildlife including butterflies and honey bees. They belong to the daisy family of Asteraceae. Its name comes from ancient Greek to mean "star". These flowers do look like shiny stars with multi petals, and can resemble little heavenly sparkles on the grass. There are many types of asters, hundreds in fact, and the species includes the alpine aster, beach-sand aster, sea aster, mountain aster, wild aster and so much more. 

In ancient Greece, it was believed that the burnt leaves of aster flowers warded off evil spirits, and kept away snakes from entering the home. The goddess Astraea, known also as the "starry maid", shed tears that became aster flowers. She also represented purity, innocence and justice, winged and shining. For this reason maybe that the aster flower symbolises purity, love, innocence and fairness. In Norse mythology, asters are associated with the god Frey and goddess Freyja. These are the Vanir deities, who are gods of fertility, foresight, wisdom and magic.

Aster flowers have been used in medicine for a long time to treat epilepsy and asthma. Some types of aster are edible and has been used in salads and tea. 

Storm Valkyrie