Southern Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Iva frutescens L.
- Family: Aster (Asteraceae)
- Flowering: August-November
- Field Marks: This much branched plant which has stems woody at the base has opposite leaves and greenish flowers in heads subtended by narrow bracts.
- Habitat: Brackish shores, marshes, and drainage ditches.
- Habit: Shrubby plant, much branched from the base, up to 10 feet tall.
- Stems: Much branched, woody at base, short-hairy.
- Leaves: Opposite (except for the uppermost), simple, lanceolate, pointed at the tip, tapering to the sessile base, usually toothed (except for the uppermost), smooth or slightly hairy, up to 3 inches long, up to 1 inch wide.
- Flowers: Borne in small green heads, the heads borne in terminal spikes and subtended by leafy, alternate, toothless bracts; each head up to 1/6 inch long; male and female flowers borne in the same head.
- Sepals: 0.
- Petals: 5, united to form a funnel in the male flowers; 2, united to form a tube in the female flowers.
- Stamens: 5.
- Pistils: Ovary inferior.
- Fruits: Achenes obovate, flattened, dark purple-brown, resin-dotted, up to 1/10 inch long; fruiting stalks appear in late summer and persist through the fall and sometimes into early winter.
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