Stinkweed (Pluchea camphorata)
- Family: Aster (Asteraceae)
- Flowering: July-September.
- Field Marks: This member of the aster family has
purple or pink heads that consist only of tubular flowers. The
leaves of this plant have a bad odor when bruised.
- Habitat: Along streams, sloughs, wet meadows, wet
prairies, swamps.
- Habit: Annual or perennial herb with fibrous roots.
- Stems: Erect, branched, smooth or sparsely hairy, up
to 6 feet tall.
- Leaves: Alternate, simple, lanceolate to elliptic,
pointed at the tip, tapering to the base, toothed, smooth or
sparsely hairy, producing a bad odor when bruised, up to 5 inches
long, up to 3 inches broad.
- Flowers: Many crowded into a head, with numerous
heads forming branched, round-topped clusters; each head purple
or pink, 1/6-1/4 inch long, subtended by narrow, pointed bracts,
all the flowers tubular.
- Sepals: 0.
- Petals: 5, united below to form a short tube, purple
or pink.
- Stamens: 5.
- Pistils: Ovary inferior.
- Fruits: Achenes pale brown or even pinkish, hairy, up
to 1/20 inch long.
- Notes: This species is also known as marsh fleabane.
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