热带铁苋菜 re dai tie xian cai

Annual herbs, 0.5-1 m tall, monoecious. Branchlets adpressed pubescent. Leaves often ± apically clustered into flat rosette; stipules triangular, ca. 1 mm; petiole slender, 1.5-3.5 cm; leaf blade rhombic-ovate or subovate, 2-3.5 × 1.5-2.5 cm, membranous, pilosulose along veins, base cuneate, margin serrate, apex acute; basal veins 5. Inflorescences axillary, unbranched, 2-7 cm, pilosulose, bisexual; peduncle short; female bracts proximal, 3-7, 1- or 2-flowered, ovate-cordate, ca. 5 mm, margin crenulate, longitudinally many veined, pilose or subglabrous; distal male portion short, slender; bracts ovate-triangular or broadly triangular, ca. 0.5 mm; allomorphic female flower at apex. Male flowers 5-7 per bract; pedicel ca. 0.5 mm; sepals 4, ovate, ca. 0.4 mm; stamens 8. Female flowers subsessile; sepals 3, triangular, ca. 0.5 mm, ciliate; ovary pilose; styles 3, 2.5-3 mm, 5-laciniate. Capsule 3-locular, ca. 2 mm in diam., pilosulose. Seeds ovoid, ca. 1.5 mm, minutely puncticulate. Fl. and fr. Mar-Oct.

Grasslands, wastelands, roadsides; below 100 m. E Hainan, S Taiwan [Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam; tropical Africa; naturalized in tropical America].