| from the October 24, 2010 Newsletter issued from
Hacienda Chichen Resort beside Chichén Itzá Ruins, central Yucatán, MÉXICO PLUCHEA It's a pretty good time to be enjoying weeds. After the long, hot rainy season they're lush and healthy, and as we rapidly enter the dry season when most herbaceous and shrubby plants die back or lose their leaves, now they're often full of flowers and fruits. For example, along weedy roadsides around here sometimes you see an eight-ft-tall (2.5 m), much-branched shrub, a small portion of which is seen above. It's clear that this is a member of the Composite Family as soon as we see the pea-sized flower heads. In each head many tiny flowers are packed side by side within a goblet-shaped structure composed of numerous overlapping scales, the involucre, just as with all composite flowers. You can see some heads and a messy, fuzzy mass produced where mature heads split open and release hundreds of tiny "seeds" topped by wind-catching "parachutes" consisting of tiny, white hairs below:
This is genus Pluchea, either P. camphorata or P. odorata. With those names, you can guess that if you walk up to a leaf and crush it between your fingers it'll issue a strong, oily, medicinal smell. Most people say it stinks but in fresh air and dazzling sunlight I rather like its no-nonsense pungency, if only because it has character. I figured that Plantas Medicinales de México would have several pages dedicated to this plant's medicinal uses, but there was only slight mention, mainly for the vague symptoms of neuralgia and rheumatism. So, is this Pluchea camphorata or Pluchea odorata? Judging from pictures on the Internet it looks more like P. camphorata, known as Camphorweed up North, where it's native to the southern two-thirds of the eastern US. However, the literature describes P. camphorata as inhabiting marshy soil, while P. odorata is more generally found. The one in the picture was in thin, dry soil at the edge of a limestone quarry, where P. odorata might grow. The online Flora of North America says that the two species hybridize, so maybe the two species blend into one another so that it's pointless to debate which one it really is. |
