Visiting Merida's Parque Ecologico del Poniente yesterday, ostensibly for birding, my companion and I found ourselves zeroing in on a shrub buzzing with insects. I had hoped to get a photo of one of the giant bumblebees packing quite the saddlebags, but they were uncooperative, so I had to settle for this handsome little Ornidia orbesa, a syrphid commonly known as the green jewel fly.
Our mystery plant was identified as Pluchea carolinensis, native to the American tropics and known to English-speaking colonists as "cure for all," "bush fleabane," and "cough bush," giving some sense of its uses by humans. According to an article in Economic Botany, in the Caribbean it has been associated with a Santeria deity and used in spiritual cleansings, as well as for more mundane ailments such as coughs, colds, and inflammations. I have yet to discover if the plant has a Mayan name, which would indicate its use in traditional medicine here.
But it is obviously a plant useful to local insects, and a close look at the flower structure indicates why.
Each of what at first glance appears to be a flower is actually a cluster of tiny flowers similar to those of Appalachia's common boneset--no surprise, given that they are cousins in the aster family. All those flowers make for LOTS of pollen and nectar and, ultimately, lots of seeds. And here is where plant placement is important.
Pulchea is a pioneer plant, meaning that it happily roots itself anyplace where conditions are right; in this case, in any convenient patch of bare dirt. In its extensive native range, this is not a problem as the local fauna, including the humans, make use of it, and it is kept under control by all of its enthusiastically-growing tropical plant neighbors. Unfortunately, in other places, especially Hawaii and other Pacific islands, it is a serious invasive, crowding out native species and degrading habitat for island wildlife. This attractive medicinal plant is another example of why we humans need to be careful with what we allow into our gardens: in the places where it belongs, it is a good and useful plant, but allowed to spread in places where it is not native, it can be a serious thug.
And it needs a new name, as it does not occur in the Carolinas.
Source mentioned: Hodges, S., Bennett, B.C. The Ethnobotany of Pluchea carolinensis (Jacq.) G. Don (Asteraceae) in the Botánicas of Miami, Florida. Econ Bot 60, 75–84 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1663/0013-0001(2006)60[75:TEOPCJ]2.0.CO;2
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