Southern Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Acalypha virginica L.
- Family: Spurge (Euphorbiaceae)
- Flowering: June-October
- Field Marks: This species differs from all others in the genus by its relatively short leaf stalks and its 9- to 15-lobed bracts.
- Habitat: Along streams, swales, low woods, disturbed soil.
- Habit: Annual herb with slender roots.
- Stems: Upright, branched or unbranched, up to 2 feet tall, usually hairy with long and short hairs, sometimes becoming purplish with age.
- Leaves: Alternate, simple, ovate to elliptic to lanceolate, pointed at the tip, tapering or sometimes rounded at the base, coarsely to finely toothed, usually somewhat hairy, up to 4 inches long, up to 2 inches wide; leaf stalks up to 1/3 as long as the blades.
- Flowers: Several in axillary clusters, subtended by a leaf-like bract, the male flowers borne separately from the female flowers, but on the same plant; bracts 9- to 15-lobed, up to 1 inch long.
- Sepals: Green, very small, 2- to 5-parted.
- Petals: 0.
- Stamens: 8-16, united at the base.
- Pistils: Ovary superior; stigmas much branched.
- Fruits: Capsules 3-lobed but nearly spherical, up to 1/12 inch in diameter, sparsely hairy, usually 3-seeded.
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