ADDISONIA | 29 
(Plate 55) 
BACCHARIS HALIMIFOLIA 
Pencil Bush 
Native of the eastern United States and the West Indies 
Family CARDUACEAE TuHIstLe Family 
Baccharis halimifolia 1. Sp. Pl. 860. 1753. 
A dioecious, erectly branched, maritime shrub up to ten feet 
high, having a slightly resinous character, the branches angled, at 
least the younger parts minutely scurfy. The leaves are numerous, 
alternate, dull pale green in color, smooth and of a thickness that 
gives them a firm quality; they are one to three inches long, one 
to two inches wide, obovate-cuneate, irregularly angular-dentate 
above and short-petioled or, on the upper branches, narrower as 
well as sessile and entire. ‘The heads are small and many-flowered, 
those of the staminate plant somewhat globose and mostly clustered 
at the ends of leafy branchlets, those of the pistillate plant more 
oblong and loosely paniculate; the scales of the involucre are 
imbricate and glutinous. e flowers are yellowish white and 
tubular, those of the pistillate plant filiform. The pappus is 
white, capillary, and in the fruiting plant copious and elongated. 
Although this maritime shrub thrives under cultivation in inland 
gardens, its natural home is the salt marsh and along creeks and 
rivers that receive the tides. Only infrequently does it stray beyond 
saline influences. Its range is the long strip of seaboard from 
Massachusetts to Florida and along the Gulf to Texas, and it occurs 
also in Cuba and the Bahama Islands. A closely related species 
is found in Bermuda as well as near the coast in our southern 
states, and many others belong to the west and southwest and the 
Pacific states, some of them inhabiting arid regions, others the 
richer soils of water courses and even of mountain woodlands. 
The genus, which is a large one, embracing some three hundred 
species, reaches its highest development in South America. Some 
of the species are herbs, and others are herbaceous from a woody 
base. The pencil bush is less woody above than many of our 
strong undershrubs of swamp and woodland, its upper parts and 
inflorescence being soft and pliant. It is thus a strongly indi- 
vidualized form in our vegetation and of very characteristic appear- 
ance, especially in those situations where it groups itself in greatest 
abundance, for few other shrubs, or often none at all, are fitted to 
accept the saline conditions that are its choice. By this it is drawn 
