Pluchea rosea - Rosy Camphorweed

Pluchea rosea,  "rosy camphorweed" or "(salt) marsh fleabane," has been blooming since mid-February. It is an attractive, well-behaved native that generally isn't available even in the native plant nursery business. That's a shame, because this plant has a lot going for it. I dug my clump from a vacant lot probably 20 years ago. I'm glad I did, because now that lot is mowed regularly, and also used as a parking lot, sometimes for heavy trucks and trailers.

Pluchea rosea - Rosy Camphorweed

Pluchea is a member of the aster family, which is notable for its flowering system. Members of this family have numerous tiny flowers arranged in clusters called heads. What looks like the center of a daisy is actually an agglomeration of disc flowers, and what seem to be petals actually are individual ray flowers. Some species have both types of flowers, while others may have only ray or disc florets. Pluchea has only disk flowers, which are arranged in flat-topped clusters.

Pluchea rosea - Detail of Individual Flower on Left

The plant behaves like a standard perennial for me. If the weather gets too dry it may go dormant or semi-dormant, but new growth always emerges on schedule in the spring.

Pluchea rosea is quite undemanding, but it does like a little water. Their preferred habitat is marshes and wet flatwoods. In our yard they occupy a spot that stays somewhat moist for a good part of the year, but I imagine they would really like it wetter. They also get some dappled shade part of the day. We are in the middle of a drought now, and I have been giving them some water, but in general they do well enough on their own.

Pluchea rosea with Closeup of Flowering Clusters

I sound like a broken record with my refrain, "One of our prettiest native plants ...," but Pluchea rosea qualifies. It is quietly spectacular, creating a soft gray green "cool" spot in the landscape, and its  heads are a lovely maroon-pink. The books say they can get up to 4 feet tall, but mine stay shorter, probably due to their somewhat dry location. Cutting down the dead stalks from the previous years' growth, and trimming away the old heads to encourage new flowering are about the only maintenance required.

The leaves are somewhat thick, verging on succulent, and feel like pieces of felt. They alternate around the stems, which are branched. The leaves can be anywhere from oval to somewhat arrow-shaped, and have serrated edges. The leaf's apex often ends in a tiny hair or thorn.

Pluchea rosea with Enlargement of Single Head on Left

In all these years I've never noticed any chewing or disease damage. That likely is due to the plant's pungency and extreme hairiness. It is one hairy plant for sure - stems, leaves, bracts, flower heads. Even parts you can't see without a microscope are hairy. The otherwise gray-green leaves can shine a brilliant silver when the sunlight reflects off of them.

Unfortunately, due to their somewhat out-of-the way location in the yard, I haven't been able to tell how attractive they are to butterflies or other pollinators, but naturalist Roger Hammer calls the plant, "a supurb butterfly attractor," and he should know.

Pluchea rosea

Somebody once told me that Pluchea was one of the very few plants that goats wouldn't eat. I used to keep goats, and their lust for things like thorny blackberry canes and other seemingly inedible plants is truly astounding. I guess neither they nor insects care much for a mouth full of fuzzy mentholatum!

Seven species of Pluchea occur in Florida, and one of them, P. longifolia, is endemic. P. saggitalis is an escape native to South America. Rosy camphorweed occurs nearly throughout the state, and indeed, much of the United States, especially coastal areas. It also is found in Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and northern South America.

The genus has wide ethnobotanical history in the Southern US, Caribbean, and Asia. It has many medicinal uses, and some species have potential as anti-cancer agents. There are many forms of pluchea as a supplement on the internet. Sure wish the plants themselves were as readily available!

The complexity of the flower heads and the difficulty of rendering the texture of the leaves has discouraged me from trying anything beyond rough watercolor sketches, but maybe it's time to take the plunge.