Saltwater False-willow
Baccharis angustifolia
Found in interdune swales, wet hammocks, marsh edges. FloraQuest, phone app (app page) What its natural habitat tells you
77
Strong
Native to Florida. How scores work Is it native here?
Profile 88%
- Height
- About 13 feet
- Light
- 4 or more hours of direct sun
At a glance
- Leaves
- Deciduous
- Bloom
- September to October
- Fruiting season
- Fall
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Not yet recorded · Spread · Soil · Life cycle
Recorded in 33 Florida counties.
Natural habitats
Places it grows wild. Not a planting requirement. Each habitat page lists the plants and wildlife also found there.
1 of 3
Open sand of beaches, dunes and the hollows between them.
Dense, evergreen groves of live oak, magnolia and other hardwoods in the southern Coastal Plain, from dry oak domes to wet hydric hammocks and south Florida's tropical hammocks; salt-shaped maritime hammocks are maritime forests.
Ecological relationships
Who uses this plant?
31CaterpillarsGenus host records with ranges including FL
Genus host records with ranges including FL · Baccharis
- Anavitrinella pampinariaCommon Gray, Cranberry Spanworm
- Condica vidensWhite-Dotted Groundling
- Cremastobombycia solidaginisGoldenrod Leafminer
- Ctenoplusia oxygrammaSharp-Stigma Looper Moth
- Dichomeris serrativittellaToothed Dichomeris
- Epiblema discretivanaDescriminating Epiblema
- Estigmene acreaSalt Marsh Moth, Acrea Moth
- Eupithecia miserulataCommon Eupithacia, Common Pug
- Eusarca fundariaDark-Edged Eusarca
- Hellinsia balanotesBaccharis Borer Plume Moth, Groundsel Plume Moth
Show all 31
- Hellinsia kellicottiiGoldenrod Borer Plume Moth
- Homoeosoma electellaSunflower Moth
- Iridopsis defectariaBrown-Shaded Gray, Willow Looper
- Lioptilodes albistriolatusMousy Plume Moth
- Macaria varadariaSouthern Angle
- Platynota stultanaOmnivorous Leafroller
- Pleuroprucha insulsariaCommon Tan Wave
- Prionoxystus pigerBaccharis Carpenterworm
- Prionoxystus robiniaeCarpenterworm Moth, Black Locust Borer, Cottonwood Borer
- Sonia paraplesianaHebrew Sonia
- Sparganothis sulfureanaSparganothis Fruitworm Moth, Sulfur Leafroller, False Yellow-Head
- Spodoptera frugiperdaFall Armyworm Moth
- Spodoptera ornithogalliYellow-Striped Armyworm Moth, Cotton Cutworm
- Spragueia onagrusBlack-Dotted Spragueia
- Tallula watsoniWatson's Tallula
- Thyridopteryx ephemeraeformisEvergreen Bagworm Moth
- Aristotelia ivae
- Bucculatrix ivella
- Glyphodes floridalis
- Hellinsia lacteodactylus
- Lorita baccharivora
21BeesSoutheastern regional records
Southeastern regional records · Baccharis
Individual names are not available yet.
Noori, Seltmann & Orr 2026, A curated and integrated dataset for exploring global bee-plant interactions (GloBI), Zenodo, CC BY 4.0
6Specialist beesPollen specialists
Pollen specialists · Baccharis
- Andrena hirticincta
- Colletes simulans
- Colletes thysanellae
- Dieunomia nevadensis
- Perdita octomaculata
- Protandrena albitarsis
—BirdsRecorded genus food-resource interactions; not a state feeding claimNo records yet · Ants · Beetles · Flies · Adult butterflies / moths · Other wasps · Other insects
Growing and identification
Plant details
- Family
- Asteraceae
- Flower color
- White
- Growth rate
- Moderate
- Growth habit
- Several stems
- Foliage color
- Green
- Fruit begins
- Fall
- Fruit ends
- Fall
Safety has not been reviewed for this plant; check toxicity and thorns before planting.
Growing sources and scope
- Bloom · “September to October” · FloraQuest: Carolinas, Georgia (Southeastern Flora Team), phone app (app page) (ranked first; USDA PLANTS differs) · Carolinas and Georgia
- Flower color · “White” · USDA PLANTS · Nationwide species characteristics; local growing conditions may vary
- Foliage color · “Green” · USDA PLANTS · Nationwide species characteristics; local growing conditions may vary
- Fruit begins · “Fall” · USDA PLANTS · Nationwide species characteristics; local growing conditions may vary
- Fruit ends · “Fall” · USDA PLANTS · Nationwide species characteristics; local growing conditions may vary
- Growth habit · “Several stems” · USDA PLANTS · Nationwide species characteristics; local growing conditions may vary
- Growth rate · “Moderate” · USDA PLANTS · Nationwide species characteristics; local growing conditions may vary
- Height · “About 13 feet” · USDA PLANTS · Nationwide species characteristics; local growing conditions may vary
- Leaf retention · “Deciduous” · USDA PLANTS · Nationwide species characteristics; local growing conditions may vary
- primary_flower_color · “white” · USDA PLANTS
Also known as
Saltwater False willow
Conservation status
| Florida rank | S4 |
|---|---|
| Global rank | G4 |
| FL status | Not verified |
| Federal status | Not verified |
In your garden
Will it fit your yard?
Check this plant against your county, sun and soil moisture. Conditions are checked in your browser.
Choose a county to begin.
Sources
- Atlas of Florida Plants
- USDA PLANTS
- Vascular Plants of North Carolina (NC Natural Heritage Program)
- FloraQuest: Carolinas, Georgia (Weakley), phone app (app page)
- FloraQuest: Florida (Weakley), phone app (app page)
- NatureServe Explorer
- Shropshire & Tallamy 2025, Lepidoptera of North America north of Mexico, ZooKeys 1261 (ODbL)
- Noori, Seltmann & Orr 2026, A curated and integrated dataset for exploring global bee-plant interactions (GloBI), Zenodo, CC BY 4.0
- Smith, Bachelder, Russell, Morales, Mosher & Seltmann 2024, Bee-Specialization-Modeling v0.6.1 (specialist host table compiled from J. Fowler's pollen specialist bee lists), Zenodo, CC BY 4.0
- Hurlbert, Olsen, Sawyer & Winner 2021, Avian Diet Database, Scientific Data 8: 260 (CC0)
- Narango, Tallamy & Shropshire 2020, Few keystone plant genera support the majority of Lepidoptera species, Nature Communications