The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Ageratum houstonianum
Also called Blue Billygoat Weed, Flossflower, Mexican Ageratum, Ageratum, Garden Ageratum, Hawaii Blue, Cotton Floss
Bluemink is a cool-season annual bedding plant, sometimes a dwarf shrub, grown for its fluffy blue, white, pink or purple flower heads. Give it full sun, moist but not soggy soil, and cool conditions for the best flowering.
Ageratum houstonianum, commonly known as flossflower, bluemink, goatweed, blueweed, pussy foot or Mexican paintbrush, is a cool-season annual plant often grown as bedding in gardens.
Ageratum has evolved a unique method of protecting itself from insects: it produces a methoprene-like compound which interferes with the normal function of the corpus allatum, the organ responsible for secreting juvenile hormone during insect growth and development. This chemical triggers the next molting cycle to prematurely develop adult structures, and can render most insects sterile if ingested in large enough quantities.
The plant is native to Central America in Guatemala and Belize, and adjacent parts of Mexico, but has become an invasive weed in other areas. It was also naturalized in large parts of the tropics and in the southern United States. Its habitat is pastures, moist forest clearings and bushes up to altitudes of 1,000 metres (3,300 ft).
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Ageratum houstonianum by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
