Tithonia diversifolia (Hemsl.) A.Gray

China: Tithonia diversifolia flowers from September to January.
Madagascar: The flowering period of Tithonia diversifolia is from May to August.
Mayotte: Tithonia diversifolia flowers from June to March and fruits from August to April.
Nicaragua: Tithonia diversifolia flowers and fruits from October to December.

Central Africa: T. diversifolia is an exotic ruderal species found along roadsides, in abandoned agricultural plots and in degraded savannah.
China: Tithonia diversifolia is an exotic species, introduced and naturalised in Guangdong and Yunnan.
Madagascar: Tithonia diversifolia grows on ferralitic humic soils, more or less degraded, slightly or moderately fertile, in sunny places. It is found on banks and roadsides, disturbed sites and around homes, edges of semi-intensive crops (cassava, corn and fruit and vegetable crops), and canals, river edges in sub-humid and humid areas up to 1500 m altitude in the Upland regions, Middle East, North West and North.
Mayotte: T. diversifolia is widely naturalized, especially in degraded habitats of hygrophilic and mesophilic regions where it can quickly form dense monospecific stands. It is frequent at the roadside, in wastelands, crops, ditches and in urban areas.
Nicaragua: Tithonia diversifolia is an uncommon species, found along roadsides and forest margins in the mountains, in the Pacific and north-central zones of the country, at altitudes of 700 to 1100 m.
South Africa: Tithonia diversifolia often forms extensive and very conspicuous colonies along roads and railways.
Tanzania: T. diversifolia is found at the edges of crops, particularly sugar cane. It is used as a plant to encourage auxiliary entomofauna.
West Indies: Tithonia diversifolia is an exotic species, introduced as an ornamental plant and now escaped and more or less naturalised, between 15 and 100 m altitude.

Origin
 
Tithonia diversifolia is native to Central America.
 
Worldwide distribution
 
It is now widely spread in all tropical areas: Central and South America, Southern USA, the Caribean, tropical and southern Africa, southwestern islands of the Indian Ocean, India, China, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Australia and Pacific islands.

Local harmfulness
 
Madagascar: Tithonia diversifolia is a weed species introduced recently in Madagascar, naturalized and became invasive in different agro-ecological regions of the island; it moved to the edge of crops and fallows rapidly forming thick bushes. This species settles rarely in annual crops, but its high reproductive capacity enables this species to rapidly colonize the edges of crops, fields fallow and perennial crops in forming dense herbaceous shrubs often with other species such Lantana camara. The mass production of light seeds that disperse readily at considerable distances allows the species to invade different habitats. It locally forms very troublesome dense bushes in some growing areas with very favorable soils in the North.
Mauritius: Introduced and planted as an ornamental plant, it tends to naturalize.
Reunion: Introduced and planted as an ornamental plant, it tends to naturalize.
South Africa: Tithonia diversifolia is a fast-growing, aggressive weed that competes with native plants.
 

Medicinal: Tithonia diversifolia is a medicinal plant widely used in traditional medicine in northern Madagascar where its bears the local name "dokoterahely": the leaves are used in tea to relieve stomach aches and decoction to cure fevers and treat scabies.
 
Agricultural: Tithonia diversifolia is known for its high content in minerals; is recommended as organic fertilizer by composting or green manure to improve soil fertility of poor and degraded soils.
Extracts of the leaves of this plant have well-known pesticides effects and manure made with leaves and branches crushed and macerated used as an insecticide and fungicide. (See the project fact sheet ADAPPT or that of the OPTIONS project).
In Tanzania, it is planted in hedgerows along the edges of sugar cane fields to encourage auxiliary entomofauna.
 
Feeding: This plant is sometimes used as fodder for livestock.
 
Ornamental: It is used as an ornamental plant in gardens.
 

Herbarium pictures ReCOLNAT: https://explore.recolnat.org/search/botanique/simplequery=Tithonia%2520diversifolia