The English common name derives from the flowers being in bloom during Michaelmas (the Feast of St. Michael the archangel).

The basal leaves are obovate and petiolated, the cauline ones are alternate and sessile, increasingly narrower and lanceolate.

Asters are valued in the garden for late summer and autumn colour in shades of blue, pink and white.

The following have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit:- The typical habitat is rocky limy areas, the edges of the bushes and copses, but also the sub-alpine meadows, marshy places and lake sides.

It prefers calcareous and slightly dry substrate with basic pH and low nutritional value, at an altitude of 0–800 metres (0–2,625 ft) above sea level.