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Toothed Camphor-Weed
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Toothed Camphor-Weed
P Native Photo: Sarman Ratiya
Common name: Toothed Camphor-Weed
Botanical name: Pluchea arguta    Family: Asteraceae (Sunflower family)
Synonyms: Pluchea frutescens, Laggera arida, Conyza odontophylla

Toothed Camphor-Weed is an erect branched, stout shrub, pungent, stem and branches round, glutinous-velvet-hairy to papillose or almost hairless. Leaves are quite variable, 1.5-3 x 0.3-0.8 cm, stalkless, alternate, stalkless, narrowed at base, oblong-inverted-lanceshaped or obovate, pointed or nearly so, coarsely sawtoothed, toothed, teeth 5-7, sharp, densely glandulose to papillose or completely hairless on both surfaces. Flower-heads are ovoid or bell-shaped, 4-12 mm in diameter, solitary or few arranged in corymb-like fashion; receptacle flat, naked; flower-cluster-stalk glandular hairy to almost hairless; phyllaries in 5-6-series, outer lanceshaped, pointed, sawtoothed, velvet-hairy, 2-3 x about 0.5 mm, middle pointed, velvet-hairy, slightly longer than the outer ones, inner linear pointed, entire, 5-7 x about 0.5 mm. Florets are pink or violet, marginal florets female, thread-like, many; disc florets bisexual, fewer 6-20. Anther bases with a tail. The single-seeded fruits are small, linear to spindle shaped; pappus setae 6-7. It is a variable species, particularly, the leaf breadth and the indumentum. Densely glandular velvet-hairy to almost hairless forms. Toothed Camphor-Weed is found in SE. Yemen, S. Iran to W. India. Flowering: All year.

Identification credit: Sarman Ratiya Photographed in Gangeshwar hill, Bhuj, Kutch, Gujarat.

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