Redflower ragleaf

Crassocephalum crepidioides, the redflower ragleaf or thickhead, is an erect, slightly succulent annual herb in the family Asteraceae growing 30-180 cm tall, with hollow, ribbed, sparsely pubescent stems and fleshy, mucilaginous foliage. The alternate, lanceolate to obovate leaves are 7-20 cm long, soft, irregularly lobed or dentate with sharp teeth, and taper to a winged, often clasping petiole. The inflorescences are loose, terminal corymbs of nodding, narrowly cylindrical capitula 12-15 mm long; each head is composed of brick-red, orange or rusty-purple disc florets only, subtended by a single row of green involucral bracts with characteristically dark tips. After flowering the heads become erect and produce numerous slender ribbed achenes 2-3 mm long crowned with a copious pappus of fine white silky bristles that aid wind dispersal. Native to tropical Africa, the species is now a pantropical weed of cultivation, roadsides and clearings throughout tropical Asia, the Pacific, the Caribbean and parts of the Americas.