Tidestroemia lanuginosa
Family: Amaranthaceae
Plant Description: Annual with prostrate or ascending stems, often forming mounds up to 1 m high. Leaves 0.5-3 cm long, opposite, grayish to whiteish and shiny, covered with star-shaped hairs, blades obovate up to 2.8 cm long. The tepals oval or roundish, white to gray-green. Flowers few together, perfect, inconspicuous, in clusters in the axils; sepals scalelike; petals absent, the tepals about 2 mm long, greenish yellow. Seed a 1-seeded urticle (membranous, slightly inflated), indehiscent.
Plant Trivia:
Field Identification: Mat to mounding “croton-like” plant habit, often on foredunes at the beach. Leaves much smaller than crotons. Abundant in sand dunes. Show up brightly in moonlight and bright sunshine.
Occurrence: Frequent on the barrier islands; occasional on the mainland in disturbed, barren, or brackish soils.
Bloom Period: May-December
Plant Use:
stxflora 