I don't know the name of it, but was just noticing it today....that it is back in bloom. It grows in ditches and the edge of the woods here....Gulf Coast, near Galveston.

Baccharis halimifolia - -evergreen too! It's in the daisy family of Asteraceae.

I just came back to say I'd found it. Right on, Dave! :D

NoVA Dave, you've been posting here so long you have all the answers. Now all you need to do is write a book. (eye winking) It sure appears to be Baccharis halimifolia or Groundsel Tree. This shrub can take anything that Mother Nature can throw at it sun, wind, wet, dry, salt, never seen deer eat it. Ideal for a naturalized landscape in the sun such a beach house. Who knew there was a native woody composite?

Can't remember the name, but there's an aster found in S. Florida that is both twining and vining and woody.

+om

Different year, same plant. Groundsel tree can take the most inhospitable conditions. It's often seen growing in pure gravel outside of the guardrail. The one pictured here is not in bloom, instead the fluff helps the seed to become airborne. Great for its soft, natural look, good along the seaside, never seen deer touch it.

Thanks for posting it, sam, tho I'm not sure I've ever seen it. But roadsides & fields around here lately have a small, white-blooming plant covering large areas that I found out was white snakeroot -- I learned something new.

We have something like your Groundsel, but have always thought it was call Saltbush. What is the difference?

That one is customarily Atriplex.

A few years ago the Laurence Hatch website(s) profiled a selection with improved puffiness, har har har. I wonder whatever happened to it.

They never look good in pictures, really, but big patches of them can be oddly picturesque. They seem to have used the I-95 corridor to spread northwards and inward from the coastal plain. Seems like almost all of them in Baltimore, Cecil, Harford or New Castle counties are along the highway.

from what I have noticed, the individual plants are not very long lived but they seed so profusely that replacements are plentiful. one showed up at the edge of my front woods and grew for about 3-4 years and then died. never tried to transplant one - could be one of those plants that only grows where it decides to take root from seed on the wind.