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Pakistan | Family List | Amaranthaceae | Alternanthera

Alternanthera bettzickiana (Regel) Voss in Vilm., Blumengart. ed. 3. 1:689. 1895. (bettzichiana sphalm.); Aschers. & Graebn., Syn. Fl. Mitteleuropas (5)1:365. 1920; Bailey, Manual Cult. Pl. ed. 2:357. 1949.

  • Telanthera bettzickiana Regel

    Erect or ascending, bushy perennial herb commonly cultivated as an annual, c. 5-45 cm, stem and branches villous when young but soon glabrescent. Leaves narrowly or more broadly elliptical to oblanceolate or rhomboid-ovate, acute or acuminate at the apex, long-attenuate into an indistinctly demarcated petiole below, often purple-suffused and not rarely variegated. Heads axillary, sessile, usually solitary, globose or ovoid, 5-6 mm in diameter. Tepals white, lanceolate, acute, mucronate with the excurrent midrib, the outer 3 prominently 3-nerved below and darker in the nerved area, with a line of minutely barbellate white hairs along each side of this area, the hairs becoming denser towards the base of the tepal; inner 2 tepals shorter, mostly 1-2-nerved. Pseudo-staminodes equalling the filaments, laciniate at the tip.

    Type: Cultivated specimen from St. Petersburg Botanic Garden (LE, holotype!).

    Said to be a native of tropical America, probably Brazil, now widespread as a bedding plant and exact native area blurred by naturalisation; but no certainly wild specimens have been seen, and the plant may be a cultigen of Alternanthera ficoidea (L.) R. Br. ex Griseb.


     

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