Trixis divaricata

Trixis divaricata is a shrub or subshrub of the daisy family (Asteraceae) native to the Neotropics, ranging from Mexico through Central America into much of tropical and subtropical South America, where it grows in dry forest, scrub, thickets, and disturbed open ground. The genus Trixis comprises roughly forty-five species, many of them American shrubs with milky or resinous tissue. T. divaricata forms a much-branched, somewhat sprawling shrub up to about 1–2 m tall with slender, divaricate (widely spreading) branches. The leaves are alternate, lanceolate to elliptic, sessile or shortly stalked, with toothed margins and a somewhat resinous, aromatic quality. The yellow flower heads are borne singly or in loose terminal clusters; each head contains bilabiate (two-lipped) florets, a feature distinctive of the genus, subtended by a cylindric involucre of narrow phyllaries. The fruit is a slender, ribbed cypsela crowned with a pappus of fine bristles that aids wind dispersal. Flowering occurs chiefly in the dry season.