Southern Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Baccharis angustifolia Michx.
- Family: Aster (Asteraceae)
- Flowering: September-November
- Field Marks: This is the only species of Baccharis which has leaves no more than 1/4 inch wide.
- Habitat: Brackish marshes and shores, sloughs, coastal marshes and hammocks, mangrove swamps.
- Habit: Shrub up to 12 feet tall.
- Stems: Much branched, smooth.
- Leaves: Alternate, simple, more or less leathery, bright green, linear to narrowly elliptic, without teeth, smooth, up to 2 inches long, up to 1/4 inch wide.
- Flowers: Male and female borne in heads on different plants; all flower heads composed only of disk flowers; heads up to 1/4 inch long.
- Sepals: 0.
- Petals: 5, united below to form a very slender tube.
- Stamens: 5.
- Pistils: Ovary inferior.
- Fruits: Achenes brown, about 1/20 inch long, with slender bristles up to 1/2 inch long at the tip.
- Notes: When in fruit, this shrub is a mass of white.
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