Western Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Baccharis glutinosa Pers.
- Family: Composite (Compositae)
- Flowering: April-October
- Field Marks: This shrub differs from other species in the genus by its linear-lanceolate, toothed leaves and its terminal panicles of yellowish flower heads that contain only disk flowers.
- Habitat: Along streams and other waterways, particularly in the desert.
- Habit: Shrub, woody at least at the base, up to 10 feet tall.
- Stems: Upright, smooth, unbranched below, branched above.
- Leaves: Alternate, simple, linear-lanceolate, up to 6 inches long, up to 1 inch wide, pointed at the tip, tapering to the base, without hairs but sticky, usually toothed; leaf stalks up to 1/3 inch long.
- Flowers: Many crowded into heads, the male heads separate from the female heads and on separate plants, both types forming terminal panicles; heads containing only disk flowers, subtended by ovate to lance-ovate bracts up to 1/6 inch long.
- Sepals: 0.
- Petals: 5, united to form yellowish tubular flowers that comprise the disk.
- Stamens: 5.
- Pistils: Ovary inferior, smooth.
- Fruits: Achenes narrowly ellipsoid, greenish, about 1/24 inch long, smooth.
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