Acalypha polystachya Jacq.

Herb to ca 1 m high; stems glabrate, with minute glandular droplets on young tips. Leaves membranous; petioles minutely puberulent, glabrate, 5-14 cm long; stipules linear-lanceolate, acuminate, glabrate, 11-13 mm long; blades ovate, ca 7-20 cm long, 4-12 cm broad, completely glabrate (hairs rare and scattered on veins), strongly 3-veined (and with 2 much weaker veins) at base, otherwise pin-nately veined (ca 8 additional major veins on a side), the base rounded or truncate, the margin serrate (teeth 22-35 on a side), the apex acuminate. Inflorescences spicate, unisexual, female spikes terminal and often in the upper axils as well, 6-11 cm long, loosely flowered, with ca 30-50 bracts, 1-1.5 cm across; male spikes axillary, ca 1-2.5 cm long, with peduncles 5-20 mm long. Pistillate flowers paired, sessile; enveloping bracts glabrous 7-10.5 mm long (or smaller in depauperate plants), cut ca 1/2 way into 9-12 lanceolate, attenuate-acuminate lobes, the middle ones ca 5-6 mm long; calyx-lobes obscure; ovary minutely hispidulous, the styles free, sparsely and obscurely hispidulous at base, distally laciniate into ca 6-10 subulate lobes 1.5-2.5 mm long. Capsules glabrous; seeds ovoid, beaked, prominently rugose, 2.5-2.8 mm long.

Moist thickets or fields, sometimes on sandbars along streams, or as a weed in cultivated ground; at elevations up to 400 metres.

Can be grown by seedlings.