Michaelmas daisy

plural Michaelmas daisies

1. biologyAny of several species and hybrids of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae, particularly in the genera Aster or Symphyotrichum; a flower of any such plant.First known use 18th c.

   He stood across in the other garden, beside a bush of pale Michaelmas daisies, watching the last bees crawl into the hive.

   1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “chapter 12”, in Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC

   1 more example

   There was a lavatory at the end of the garden beyond a scraggy clump of Michaelmas daisies that never looked well in themselves, always sere, never blooming, the perennial ghosts of themselves, as if ill-nourished by an exhausted soil.

   1976, Angela Carter, “The Mother Lode”, in Shaking a Leg, Vintage, published 2013, page 3