Acalypha brachystachya - Short-Spike Copperleaf

Short-spike copperleaf is a weak, flaccid annual herb up to 50 cm, but more commonly 30 cm, in height. Stems are sparingly velvet-hairy to nearly hairless. Leaf-stalks are 1-4 cm long, slender. Leaf-blades are ovate to broadly ovate, 1.5-4 x 1-2.5 cm, rarely larger, somewhat pointed to shortly tapering, wedge-shaped or rounded, rounded toothed-sawtoothed, 3-nerved from the base, sparingly hairy above and beneath. Flowers are borne in leaf-axils, in stalkless, congested racemes about 1 cm long, with up to 6 femalebracts and a very short male one at tip, sometimes terminated by an allomorphic female flower. female bracts deeply 3-5-partite, the lobes linear, the median one accrescent to 5 mm long, the others shorter, pointed or nearly so, velvet-hairy and glandular-hairy, 2-3-flowered. Male flowers are shortly stalked. Female flowers are stalkless. Allomorphic female flowers are crowned by two incompletely closed minutely finely toothed finely velvet-hairy bract-like whorls. Fruits are trilobate, 2 mm diameter, velvet-hairy. Short-spike copperleaf is found in Tropical Africa to Arabian Peninsula, Central & S. China to Tropical Asia, including the Himalayas, at altitudes of 1200-2400 m. Flowering: June-September.