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.
Vernonia galamensis
Vernonia galamensis is an East African annual-type herb in the daisy family, grown as an industrial oilseed for vernolic acid-rich oil. It needs warm, seasonally dry tropical conditions to set good seed.
Vernonia galamensis is a plant in the sunflower family, known for its use as an oilseed. This species, often called ironweed, is the largest source of vernonia oil, which is rich in a useful epoxy fatty acid called vernolic acid and is used to make plastics, rubbery coatings, and drying agents. Use of this oil as a replacement for traditional plasticizers and binders in the production of paints and PVC shows promise as a method of reducing smog pollution.
One of over 1,000 species in genus Vernonia, V. galamensis is native to East Africa. It is grown in the region as an industrial oilseed. Its seed production is poor when it is grown outside of the equatorial region, so cultivation in other places is not always economically worthwhile; however, further studies in the breeding of this species to generate more productive varieties may show promise.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Vernonia galamensis 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.
