The green links below add additional plants to the comparison table. Blue links lead to other Web sites.
enable glossary links

whiteweed

Habit Annuals and perennials, mostly 20–120 cm.
Stems

often decumbent (rooting at proximal nodes), sparsely to densely branched.

Leaves

cauline; all or mostly opposite;

petiolate;

blades mostly 1-nerved, deltate to ovate, or elliptic to lanceolate, margins entire or toothed, faces glabrous or ± pilose, puberulent, or strigoso-hispid, sometimes gland-dotted.

Involucres

campanulate, 3–6 mm.

Receptacles

conic, epaleate [paleate].

Florets

20–125;

corollas white or bluish to lavender, throats ± campanulate (lengths 2 times diams.);

styles: bases not enlarged, glabrous, branches ± linear to clavate (usually papillose and dilated distally).

Phyllaries

persistent, 30–40 in 2–3 series, usually 2-nerved, lanceolate, ± equal (often indurate, margins scarious).

Heads

discoid, in dense to open, cymiform to corymbiform arrays.

Cypselae

prismatic, 4–5-ribbed, glabrous or sparsely strigoso-hispidulous;

pappi persistent, of 5–6 aristate scales, or coroniform, or 0.

x

= 10.

Ageratum

Distribution
from USDA
United States; Mexico; Central America; 2 species widespread as adventives
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Species ca. 40 (4 in the flora).

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Key
1. Plants colonial; stems and leaves glabrous or glabrate
A. maritimum
1. Plants not colonial; stems and leaves hairy
→ 2
2. Stems puberulent to minutely strigoso-hispid; cypselae glabrous
A. corymbosum
2. Stems sparsely to densely pilose (usually in combination with other forms of vestiture); cypselae sparsely strigoso-hispidulous.
→ 3
3. Peduncles minutely puberulent and sparsely to densely pilose, eglandular; phyllaries oblong-lanceolate, abruptly tapering to subulate tips 0.5–1 mm, glabrous or sparsely pilose, margins often ciliate, abaxial faces eglandular
A. conyzoides
3. Peduncles mixed pilose, stipitate-glandular, and viscid-puberulent; phyllaries narrowly lanceolate, gradually tapering to indurate-subulate tips 0.8–2 mm, margins not ciliate or inconspicuously ciliate, abaxial faces stipitate-glandular and sparsely to densely pilose
A. houstonianum
Source FNA vol. 21, p. 481. Author: Guy L. Nesom.
Parent taxa Asteraceae > tribe Eupatorieae
Subordinate taxa
A. conyzoides, A. corymbosum, A. houstonianum, A. maritimum
Name authority Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 2: 839. (1753): Gen. Pl. ed. 5, 363. (1754)
Web links