Ladies' false fleabane

Pulicaria arabica, the ladies' false fleabane, is a low spreading perennial herb in the Asteraceae family native to the Mediterranean basin, North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and parts of western and central Asia, where it grows on sandy soils, dry rocky slopes, and disturbed roadside ground. The plant typically reaches twenty to fifty centimetres in height with a branched, somewhat woody base and erect to ascending, finely white-hairy stems. The alternate leaves are oblong to lance-shaped, three to seven centimetres long, sessile and partly clasping the stem, with wavy or shallowly toothed margins and a soft greyish tomentum, particularly on the undersurface. Small bright yellow flower heads about one and a half centimetres across are borne singly or in loose terminal corymbs in summer; each head bears short narrow ray florets surrounding a yellow disc. The whole plant gives off a faint resinous fragrance when crushed.