FoI
Pineapple Weed
Share Foto info
Pineapple Weed
aturalized Photo: Thingnam Girija
Common name: Pineapple Weed, Wild chamomile, Disc mayweed,False chamomile, Rayless chamomile
Botanical name: Matricaria discoidea    Family: Asteraceae (Sunflower family)
Synonyms: Matricaria matricarioides auct. non (Less.) Porter, Chamomilla discoidea

Pineapple-weed is an annual weed with finely dissected leaves that emit a sweet pineapple-like odor when crushed. It is an annual herb, with stem erect or rising up, 5-40 cm high, branched from base or in upper part, hairless or densely velvet-hairy below flower-heads. Leaves are stalkless; leaf blade inverted-lanceshaped or oblong, 2-3 x 0.6-1 cm, 2-pinnately dissected, segments shortly linear, hairless. Flower-heads are borne in corymblike clusters or solitary at branch ends, stalked: flower-cluster-stalk 5-10 mm. Involucre is cup-shaped, phyllaries in 3 rows, equal, oblong, 2-3 x 0.5-1 mm, scarious margin hyaline with blunt tip, below hairless. Ray florets are absent, disc florets bisexual, pale yellow-green, 0.8-1.3 mm, flower tubular, 5-lobed. Cypselae oblong, fairly curved, 1.6 x 0.5 mm, tip diagonally flat, with 2 or 3 upper white thin ribs and one red thin strip on both sides. Pappus whitish, coroniform. Pineapple Weed is native to Western North America and Eurasia, introduced in many parts of the U.S., naturalized in some parts of India.

Identification credit: Gurcharan Singh Photographed in Lahaul, Himachal Pradesh.

• Is this flower misidentified? If yes,