Pluchea Cass. in Bull. Soc. Philom. 31. 1817; Benth. in Benth. & Hook.f., Gen. Pl. 2: 290. 1873 ; Hook.f., Fl. Brit. Ind. 3: 271. 1881; Rech.f., Fl. Iran. 145: 7. 1980; Anderb. in Pl. Syst. & Evol. 176: 145: 164. 1991; in Bremer, Asteraceae Clad. & Class. 301. 1994; S. Kumar in Hajra et al., Fl. Ind. 13: 153. 1995; King-Jones in Willdenowia 29: 203-220. 1999; Boulos & Hind in Boulos, Fl. Egypt 3: 189. 2002.
Undershrubs or herbs with or without resin canals, puberulous-pubescent, tomentose or glutinous, sometimes glandular-viscid, rarely glabrous. Leaves alternate, sometimes subopposite, dentate to serrate, entire, rarely pinnatifid, sessile or shortly petiolate, generally not decurrent. Capitula small, solitary or few to many together in terminal corymbs, disciform, white, pink, violet or yellow; phyllaries few in unequal series, ovate or obtuse, often with scarious margins. Receptacle naked. Marginal florets female, filiform, disc florets tubular, few, functionally male; style entire or almost undivided or sometimes divided. Cypselas without resin ducts, of marginal florets stout and of disc florets often indistinct or vestigial as a small ring consisting of the basal sclerenchymatous cells of the carpopodium; pappus setae barbellate, free.
A genus with about 80 species, distributed in Asia, North and South America, Africa and Australia. Represented in Pakistan by 4 or 5 species.
Excluded species:
Pluchea rufescens Benth.?
Burkill, Work. List Fl. Pl. Baluch. 38. 1909 reported this taxon from Baluchistan without a precise locality and referred to a Lace specimen. We have been unable to trace Lace collection. Pluchea rufescens was never described by Bentham and in fact no taxon has ever been described under this name until 1987. Scott (1987) published a combination Pluchea rufescens (DC.) A. J. Scott in Kew Bull. 42: 854. 1987 and transferred Monarrhenus rufescens DC., Prodr. 5: 457. 1836 under Pluchea – originally described from Mauritius (probably Madagascar). It seems probable that Lace inadvertently confused this taxon with Pluchea frutescens Benth. in Hook. Ic. Pl. 12. t. 1175. 1876 which is a synonym of P. arguta Boiss. – a species, common in Southern Baluchistan. The occurrence of Pluchea rufescens (DC.) A. J. Scott in our area is rather improbable.
