Brickellia californica

Brickellia californica
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
(unranked): Angiosperms
(unranked): Eudicots
(unranked): Asterids
Order: Asterales
Family: Asteraceae
Subfamily: Asteroideae
Tribe: Eupatorieae
Genus: Brickellia
Species: B. californica
Binomial name
Brickellia californica
(Torr. & A.Gray) [1]
Synonyms

Brickellia californica, known by the common name California brickellbush, is a species of flowering plant in the daisy family.[1][2]

Distribution

The plant is native to Northern Mexico in Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, and Coahuila states; and much of the Western United States, across California north to Oregon, northeast to Idaho and Wyoming, and east through the Southwestern states to Colorado, New Mexico, and West Texas.[3]

It is found below 2,700 metres (8,900 ft), in many habitat types including forests, woodlands, scrub, grasslands, and deserts. [2][4]

It is a common plant in many types of California habitats, including chaparral, coastal sage scrub, oak woodland, valley grassland, yellow pine forest, Sierra Nevada subalpine zone, and Mojave Desert sky islands. [1][2]

Description

Brickellia californica is a thickly branching shrub growing 5–200 cm (2–78.5 in) in height. The fuzzy, glandular leaves are roughly triangular in shape with toothed to serrated edges. The leaves are 1 - 6 centimeters long. [2]

The inflorescences at the end of stem branches contain many small leaves and bunches of narrow, cylindrical flower heads. Each head is about 13 millimeters long and wrapped in flat, wide, purplish green overlapping phyllaries. At the tip of the head are a number of long white to pink disc florets. [2] The bloom period is August through November. [1]

The fruit is a hairy cylindrical achene 3 millimeters long with a pappus of bristles. [2][5]

Medicinal plant

The Navajo and Kumeyaay (Diegueño) peoples used it as a traditional medicinal plant for fevers, coughs, and prenatal complications. [6]

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Brickellia californica.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 6/22/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.