Widely used common names include eastern baccharis, groundsel bush, sea myrtle, and saltbush. Consumption weed, cotton-seed tree, groundsel tree, menguilié, and silverling are also used more locally. In most of its range, where no other species of the genus occur, this plant is often simply called baccharis.
Fruiting Baccharis halimifolia in late autumn in central North Carolina
Baccharis halimifola was first described and named by Carl Linnaeus in his Species Plantarum, published in 1753. No subspecies or varieties are recognized within the species.
Late fall flowerheads, with purple sheath around silky white pappusCarl Linnaeus, who first named and described Baccharis halimifolia (1775 portrait by Alexander Roslin)
Baccharis halimifolia is a fall-flowering shrub growing to about 12 ft (4 m) high and comparably wide, or occasionally a small tree. Its simple, alternate, thick, egg-shaped to rhombic leaves mostly have coarse teeth, with the uppermost leaves entire. These fall-flowering Baccharis plants are dioecious, with male and female flowers on separate individuals. Their flowers are borne in numerous small, compact heads in large leafy terminal inflorescences, with the snowy-white, cotton-like female flower-heads showy and conspicuous at a distance.[10][11]
The species is sometimes confused with the marsh-elder (Iva frutescens),[12] with which it often co-occurs, but the Baccharis has its leaves alternate, while those of the Iva are opposite.[10]
The species features since 2016 on the list of Invasive Alien Species of Union Concern.[13] This means that import of the species and trade in the species is forbidden in the whole of the European Union.[14]
In the northeastern United States, the species has become common well inland of the shrub's natural range along various major highways where road salt is heavily used,[7] sometimes forming conspicuous displays when flowering in the fall, as along I-95inHoward County, Maryland.
Baccharis halimifolia is occasionally cultivated and is considered useful as a hedge or border as well as a specimen plant.[11]
In southern Louisiana, it has been traditionally used as a medicine to treat inflamed kidneys and fever.[16]
^Hitchcock, A.S. & P. C. Standley (1919). Flora of the District of Columbia and Vicinity (Contributions from the United States National Herbarium, vol.21). Washington: United States National Museum (Reprinted by Kessinger Publishing, LaVergne, Tennessee, 2010). pp. 329 (+42 plates). ISBN1-4369-8558-7.
^ abcdefghBrown, Steven H. & Kim Cooperrider. "Baccharis halimifolia". University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Services. Archived from the original on 6 December 2022. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
^"Iva frutescens". Flora of North America. Flora of North America. Retrieved 12 October 2011.
Data related to Baccharis halimifolia at Wikispecies
