Groundsel bush

Groundsel bush, Seven Hollows Trail, Petit Jean State Park, Arkansas, November 17, 2007

Baccharis halimifolia

Wikipedia
accessed 9/13/2022

Baccharis halimifolia is a North American species of shrubs in the family Asteraceae. It is native to Nova Scotia, the eastern and southern United States (from Massachusetts south to Florida and west to Texas and Oklahoma), eastern Mexico (Nuevo León, San Luis Potosí, Tamaulipas, Veracruz, Quintana Roo), the Bahamas, and Cuba.

Widely used common names include eastern baccharis, groundsel bush, sea myrtle, and saltbush, with consumption weed, cotton-seed tree, groundsel tree, menguilié, and silverling also used more locally. In most of its range, where no other species of the genus occur, this plant is often simply called baccharis.

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.

Baccharis halimifolia, usually found in wetlands, is unusually salt-tolerant, and often found along salty or brackish shores of marshes and estuaries, and the inland shores of coastal barrier islands. In Florida, it is also found along ditches, in old fields, and in other disturbed areas. Other habitats in the northeastern United States include freshwater tidal marshes and open woods and thickets along the seacoast

The flowers produce abundant nectar that attracts various butterflies, including the monarch (Danaus plexippus). These dense shrubs also provide wildlife food and cover.

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, sometimes forming conspicuous displays when flowering in the fall.

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This series of posts is on plants that I have found growing in natural surroundings that are not looked after by people.  Some of those may be plants very close to home, even in the woods next to our house.  Many will be in other areas, but all will be within about 1 hour of Russellville.