Author

Joseph Gore

Capitula/heads

About 5 mm. high, 3-4 mm. broad; campanulate, ca 4-6 x 3-4 mm, phyllaries imbricate, usually cream or purplish with small sessile-glands to glabrate.

Common Name(s)

marsh fleabane, stinkweeds.

Disk Flowers

Inner florets 2-40+, functionally staminate; corollas creamy white, whitish, yellowish, pinkish, lavender, purplish, or rosy; lobes 4-5.

Ecology

Annual or perennial; thrives in moist areas and waste places such as roadsides, fields, open woods, etc. Moist to wet bottomland hardwoods in clearings, riverbanks, swamps, marshy shores, wet meadows, swales and thickets, and ditches.

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Family

ASTERACEAE/COMPOSITAE, sunflower family

Fruit

Achenes (cypselae) oblong-cylindric, ribs 4–8, faces strigillose and/or minutely sessile-glandular or glabrous; pappus persistent or tardily falling, of distinct or basally connate, barbellate bristles in 1 series.

Leaves

Leaves are alternate, simple; narrow petioles 1-2 cm. long; blades elliptical to oblong, 6-15 cm. long, 3-7 cm. apices broadly acute or acuminate; margins are dentate - serrate or cranate-serrate.

Plant and Stem Features

Annual or perennial herbs; to ca 2 meters tall; stems are short-pubescent, becoming glabrous below; usually closely arachnose.

Ray Flowers

Periferal florets in 3-10+ series, pistillate; corollas creamy white, whitish, yellowish, pinkish, lavender, purplish, or rosy.

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References

Godfrey, Robert K. and Jean W. Wooten. 1981. Aquatic and wetland plants of southeasternunited states : Dicotyledons. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 780-781.

Guy L. Nesom. 2006. Pluchea. In: Flora of North America Editorial Committee (Eds.), Flora of North America. vol 19, pp. 478. Oxford University Press, New York, Oxford.

Tiner, Ralph W. 1993. Field guide to coastal wetland plants of the southeasteren united states. Amherst, Massachusetts: The University of Massachusetts Press, 122.

IPNI. 2004. The International Plant Names Index. http://www.ipni.org/index.html.

Synonyms

Pluchea petiolata Cass.;

Pluchea viscida (Raf.) House

mounted herbarium sheet, 1 of 2	mounted herbarium sheet, 2 of 2
Upper leaf surface midvein	arachnose hairs on stem surface
lower leaf surface, midvein	lower surface showing glandular hairs
leaf margin showing dentate-serrate teeth	pedicels
head side view	lower phyllaries
periferal flower, pistillate	head, top view
inner flower, staminate	inner flower corolla lobes
inner flower, corolla lobes and stamens	anther collar of inner flower
anther collar of inner flower	anther collar base showing anther tails
mature stamens	achene/cypselae