Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

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Dysphania ambrosioides

Common name

Mexican Tea, Wormseed

Family

Chenopodiaceae

Where found

Disturbed sites. Coastal north from Jervis Bay. Occasionally elsewhere.

Notes

Introduced annual or perennial herb to 1 m tall. Stems grooved, with short hairs, or hairless. Leaves highly aromatic, smelling of crushed ants or like turpentine, alternating up the stems, 3-20 cm long, 10-50 mm wide, upper surface hairless, lower surface covered in yellow glandular hairs or resin dots, margins lobed or toothed, tips pointed. Flowers small, green, single or in small clusters, in leafy or virtually leafless branched clusters to 40 cm long. The topmost flowers of the cluster bisexual, 1-1.5 mm in diameter, with 5 green 'petals' fused at the base. Lateral flowers female, 0.5-1 mm in diameter, with 5 green 'petals' fused for almost their entire length and enclosing the ripe seed. Flowers Summer to Autumn. 

Was Chenopodium ambrosioides.

PlantNET description:   http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Dysphania~ambrosioides (accessed 12 January, 2019)