The biology of Australian weeds 58. 'Baccharis halimifolia' L.
Review(s) of: The genus name Baccharis is after the Greek bakkaris, an oil producing plant (later called 'Celtic valerian') (Parsons and Cuthbertson 1992). The species name halimifolia is derived from the Greek alimos meaning 'seas' and the Latin folium meaning 'leaf' (Parsons and Cuthbertson 1992). Baccharis halimifolia L. belongs to the family Asteraceae which is the largest family of flowering plants, comprised of over 1100 genera and 19 000 species (Zomlefer 1994). Baccharis is a large genus, comprised of over 400 species (Mahler and Waterfall 1964, Zomlefer 1994) distributed over seven geographical areas: Brazil, Andes Mountains, Andes-Patagonia, Guyanarum, south-eastern Brazil, Mexico (including western United States) and the Antilles (including the eastern United States) (Boldt 1989). In Australia, B. halimifolia is most commonly known as groundsel bush. 'Groundsel' refers to the groundsel-like flowering heads, as in plants in the Senecio genus (Parsons and Cuthbertson 1992). In its native region it is often referred to as saltbush (Stevenson 1969, Proffitt et al. 2005), groundsel tree (Altfeld and Stiling 2006), sea myrtle (Caccamise 1977, Dickens and Boldt 1985) and eastern baccharis (Adlerz 1980).