Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses

MARSH-FLEABANE

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Pluchea odorata (L. ) Cass.

Cheyenne Bottoms, Barton County, Kansas

Annual

Height: 8-60 inches

Family: Asteraceae - Sunflower Family

Flowering Period: August, September,October

Also Called:

Sweet scent, shrubby camphor-weed, purple pluchea.

Stems:

Erect, nearly glabrous below, glandular and minutely pubescent above.

Leaves:

Alternate, ovate to lanceolate, 1.6 to 6 inches long, .4 to 2.8 inches wide, somewhat succulent; surfaces glabrous to finely-pubescent; margins shallowly toothed to nearly entire; tip pointed to tapering-pointed; base abruptly or gradually narrowed; stalk sessile or to 1.2 inch long.

Inflorescences:

Heads purplish-pink, in flat-topped or rounded arrays, these often layered; branches minutely pubescent, ash-colored; lateral branches equaling or exceeding central branches; involucre 1/6 to 1/4 inch tall; involucral bracts overlapping in several series; outer bracts usually pink or purple above, minutely pubescent, glandular-sticky, margins fringed; inner bracts sparsely fine-hairy at tips.

Flowers:

Ray florets absent; disk florets 6-19, corollas pink or rose-purple.

Fruits:

Achene, cylindrical, about 1/25 inch long, brownish-black, 4-6-angled, sparsely glandular-hairy or bristly, tipped by single series of barbed, hair-like bristles untied at base, enclosing small seed.

Habitat:

Saline or brackish marshes, stream banks, low drainage areas.

Distribution:

South 1/2 of central 1/3 of Kansas

Origin:

Native

Comments:

Marsh-fleabane is very aromatic.

Marsh-fleabane inflorescence