Groundsel bush saves its best look for fall fashion show

Groundsel bush (Baccharis halimifolia) is one of those plants you probably don’t notice most of the year.

But look for it over the next few weeks. Once it becomes blanketed with white flowers, this normally nondescript shrub seems to pop out of the landscape, providing masses of blooms when most other plants have ceased flowering.

Groundsel bush is in the same plant family as daisies, sunflowers and a small wildflower called groundsel (for which it’s named). It is native to the United States and widely distributed along the East coast.

In the Lowcountry, groundsel bush grows almost everywhere — salt marshes, fields, roadsides, drainage ditches, even patches of waste ground seemingly inhospitable to any plant life at all.

It’s also called saltbush or sea myrtle because tolerates saline soils and sea spray, and it thrives in coastal wetlands. It often colonizes areas disturbed by fire, floods or human activities.

Although it can be weedy and invasive, groundsel bush is sometimes used as a landscape plant because of its striking appearance when in bloom.

In South Carolina, flowering occurs throughout the fall, with male and female flowers borne on separate plants.

Female shrubs take on a showy, cottony appearance due to masses of white bristles attached to the numerous tiny fruits, each containing a single seed. The bristles act like miniature parachutes, helping the seeds travel in the wind.

Seeds also spread via water, vehicles and even gravel used in road construction. A single bush can produce a million or more seeds.

Aside from beautifying fields, marshes and roadsides, groundsel bush provides shelter and nest sites for wildlife. It’s also a vital nectar source for migrating Monarch butterflies passing through the Lowcountry on their way to overwintering roosts farther south.

This story was originally published October 25, 2016 at 10:00 AM with the headline "Groundsel bush saves its best look for fall fashion show."