Pluchea ovalis (Pers.) DC.
Eng.: Woolly camphor-weed.
Shrub or small tree, hermaphrodite, hairy-glandular, up to 2.5(3) m in height, very ramose, erect. Stems and older branches with fissured bark, from brown to greyish-brown or reddish-brown. Young branches greyish-brown; the youngest branches green. Leaves (3-9 × 1-4.5 cm) oblong-lanceolate, obtuse but with a small tooth at the apex, sessile, with auriculate base ± decurrent, with dentate margin, tomentose when young, then glabrescent or glabrous, green on both sides. Inflorescences corymbiform, with long pubescent and branched peduncles. Capitula small (1-1.3 cm long × 0.4-0.7 cm in diameter), highly numerous, forming a very dense and showy inflorescence. Involucre with numerous bracts, imbricate, linear-lanceolate, fimbriate, pubescent. Flowers tubular, pink. Fruit a small hairy achene, with pappus formed by 1-2 rows of white scabrid setae.
Flowering:
March to May.
Fruiting:
April to July.
Habitat:
In soils with relatively high edaphic moisture. As it grows in semiarid, arid and desert areas, usually it is found along the margins and riverbeds, streams, irrigation canals and other temporary or permanent wetlands, with low levels of salinity.
Distribution:
Tropical Africa, Arabian Peninsula, Pakistan and India. In North Africa it is a very rare species. Towards the N, it reaches the S of Morocco where, until the mid-XX century, it was collected and cited in rivers, irrigation canals and other wetlands in several locations in the Sus valley (from near Aït Melloul to Taroudant); however, it has not been found there in the last decades, until it was recently found again (Oliver et al., 2007). In contrast, in the Canary Islands, where it is not native, it is becoming a serious problem due to its invasiveness (Padron-Mederos et al., 2009; Veloove & Reyes-Betancort, 2011).
Conservation status:
Rare species, although it becomes invasive in several areas of the world. Currently, it has not been assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.