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Common name: Beggar Tick, Spanish needle, Cobbler's pegs, Phutium (Gujarati)
Botanical name: Bidens pilosa Family: Asteraceae (Sunflower family)
An erect annual or perennial herb with branching habit to about 1m high.
Leaves are deeply divided into three toothed lobes, with the terminal lobe
larger than the other two. Individual flowers are yellow but are tiny and held
in dense terminal clusters in a widely branching flowering head. Each flower
cluster has four or five short, broad, white 'petals' but these do not persist
for very long. The seeds are black, about 1 cm long, with 2 or 3 barbed awns
at the tip. In French Polynesia, American Samoa, and many other places in the
Pacific, there is a variety B. pilosa minor, which has white flowers. In
French Polynesia the variety B. pilosa pilosa also occurs. (Waterhouse and
Norris, 1987)
Cobbler's pegs or beggar's ticks is a prolific ephemeral herb. It occurs as
a major weed of vegetables and other crops; it is common in pastures,
plantations, along roadsides and on wasteland throughout the region. It
thrives best in full sun, where the soil is relatively dry and infertile.
(Swarbrick, 1997) It forms a dense ground cover that prevents regeneration of
other species.
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