Erigeron karvinskianus

Erigeron karvinskianus, the Mexican fleabane or Latin American fleabane, is a low spreading perennial herb in the family Asteraceae native to Mexico and Central America and now widely naturalized in mild-temperate and subtropical regions worldwide, including the Mediterranean, parts of Britain, California, Australia, and New Zealand. Plants form trailing or weakly ascending leafy stems 15-50 cm long that radiate from a woody base, often cascading attractively from walls and rock crevices. The leaves are alternate, small (1-3 cm long), narrowly elliptic to oblanceolate, three-lobed or coarsely toothed at the apex, sparsely hairy, and dull green. The flower heads are daisy-like, 1-2 cm across, borne singly or in small loose corymbs on slender peduncles. Ray florets are numerous, narrow, and white at first opening, turning pink and then deep magenta as they age, so that a single plant often bears flowers in all three colour-stages simultaneously, an attractive trait that has made the species a popular ornamental for walls, paving cracks, and informal cottage gardens. The yellow disc florets sit in a flat-topped receptacle within a hemispherical involucre of narrow green bracts. The achenes bear a pappus of slender white bristles.