Family, Composite. Color, greenish white. Pistillate and staminate flowers in the same head, the pistillate along the margin. Heads terminating the branches, forming long, leafy panicles, the narrow, bract-like leaves longer than the heads. Leaves, those below, opposite, fleshy, oval or lance-shape, coarsely toothed, 3-nerved, short-petioled or sessile. July to September.

Not a true shrub, but with shrubby stem at base. Reaching a height of 12 to 15 feet. Found along the coast in salt marshes and along muddy shores, from Maine to Florida and westward to Texas. The plant becomes more shrubby in the far South.