Gamochaeta purpurea (L.) Cabrera
Vernacular name: Purple Cudweed, Purple Everlasting, Purple Gnaphalium
Species Name: Gamochaeta purpurea (L.) Cabrera ( syn. Gnaphalium purpureum L.)
Family: Asteraceae
Habit: Annual herb, erect to ascending, generally low-growing and covered with dense cottony/woolly hairs.
Stem: Erect or ascending, slender, branched, and densely covered with whitish-grey cottony hairs.
Leaf: Alternate, simple, sessile or shortly petiolate, oblanceolate to spatulate, entire, densely woolly; the leaves become smaller toward the upper part of the stem.
Flowering: December–February
Flowers: Very small, tubular, bisexual, whitish to purplish; individual florets are inconspicuous and enclosed by numerous overlapping involucral bracts. Inflorescence small capitula arranged in short, dense spicate clusters, often forming compact terminal groups.
Fruit: Small cypsela (achene), generally dry and one-seeded, with a pappus that assists wind dispersal.
Uses:
- Dried parts of the plant is used to make infusion used in traditional herbal practices to treat chills, cold and grippe.
- “Plants of the World Online” acknowledged the localized used of the fruit as food.
- It is host plant and important food source for American painted lady caterpillars.
