Blumea lacera
Family
Compositae
Synonyms
Blumea runcinata DC., Blumea thyrsoidea Sch. Bip., Blumea bodinieri Vaniot.
Vernacular Names
| Malaysia | Lumai hutan (Peninsular). |
| Indonesia | Batu lincar, sembung lalaki (Sundanese), kremahan (Javanese). |
| Philippines | Damong-mabaho, tubang-kabayo (Tagalog), lamlampaka (Bontoc). |
| Thailand | Naat wua. |
| Vietnam | C[ar]i ma, d[aj]i bi r[as]ch. |
Geographical Distributions
This plant can be found in the Cape Verde Islands, tropical Africa, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Burma (Myanmar), Indo-China, China, the Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, Thailand, throughout the Malesian region towards the Marianas (Guam), the Solomon Islands, New Caledonia and Australia.
Description
It is a herb that is up to 2.5 m tall. The stems are erect, with short woolly to densely velvety hairs.
The leaves are elliptical-oblong to oblance-shaped or obovate with sizes between 3-21 cm x 1-13.5 cm. Its apex is acute to tapering at the base while the margin is entire to lyrately lobed and coarsely dentate. Both surfaces are covered with short soft hairs; the upper velvety and woolly on the lower surface.
The flowers are arising from the axil, dense to lax panicles that size 5-6.5 mm in diametre.The inflorescence is 2-10 mm long and becomes a ring of flower stalks, which size 4-10 mm long. There are 5-6 series of rows of that rings. The outer ring of flower stalk bracts is oblance-shaped but the inner ones are linear lance-shaped. All are densely velvety. The marginal flowers are 3-4 mm long with 8-30 disk flowers that size 3-4.5 mm long.
The small dry indehiscent one-seeded fruit is 1-1.3 mm long, ribbed and sparsely hairy with 4-5 mm long soft whitish hairs.
Ecology / Cultivation
B. lacera is highly variable and occurs in sunny to slightly shaded places in grasslands, fields, roadsides and forest edges, up to 2900 m altitude.
Line Drawing / Photograph
References
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Plant Resources of South-East Asia No 12(1). 1998.
