A plant of mainly of temperate Eurasia, small-flowered fleabane, Pulicaria vulgaris, is found in most areas of Greece, except for the Cyclades. Each plant is capable of producing 3,500 seeds but it has very particular requirements and unless the situation is ideal, few plants survive.

At one extreme the seeds may remain in the soil for many years before germination or at the other may begin to germinate before being shed from the parent plant; this is a form of vivipary. The species has become extinct in Switzerland and Sweden and is threatened in Britain, it is not common on Skopelos. Its survival depends on the presence of seasonal pools of freshwater. The specimen photographed here was found in isolation on the edge of pine forest, in a shallow ditch at the side of a gravel track, where it had little competition from other plants.