Home | > | List of families | > | Phyllanthaceae | > | Phyllanthus | > | leucanthus |
Synonyms: |
Phyllanthus eylesii S. Moore Phyllanthus merripaensis Jean F. Brunel |
Common names: | |
Frequency: | |
Status: | Native |
Description: |
A scaberulous or glabrous erect monoecious or rarely dioecious annual or perennial herb up to 90 cm tall but usually much less; lead shoots angular; lateral shoots up to 15 cm long, narrowly 2-winged; scale leaves c. 1 mm long, narrowly triangular-lanceolate to subulate; foliage leaves distichous; petioles 0.5–1 mm long; leaf blades 0.5–3.5 × 0.4–1.5 cm, elliptic to oblong, subacute, obtuse or rounded, cuneate or rounded at the base, light to medium green above, paler and somewhat glaucescent or purplish-tinged beneath; male flowers in few-flowered clusters in the lower parts of the lateral shoots, female flowers pendulous and solitary in the upper parts of the lateral shoots; male flowers: pedicels 0.5 mm long; sepals 6, c. 1 × 1 mm, suborbicular-obovate, rounded, cream-coloured with a greenish midrib; female flowers: pedicels 1 mm long, extending to 2 mm in fruit, somewhat flattened; sepals 6, in 2 whorls of 3, 1.5 × 1 mm, accrescent to 3 × 2 mm in fruit, the outer broadly elliptic and rounded to cordate at the base, the inner obovate and attenuate-cuneate at the base, white with a narrow green midrib; fruit 1.8 × 2.8 mm, depressed 3-lobed to subglobose, smooth, olivaceous, enclosed by the persistent sepals; seeds 1.5 × 1.2 × 1 mm, segmentiform, light to dark brown, with 7–9 shallow longitudinal ridges on the dorsal facet, and 6–7 concentric ridges on each ventral facet. |
Notes: | |
Derivation of specific name: | leucanthus: white-flowered |
Habitat: | |
Altitude range: (metres) | |
Flowering time: | Jan - Apr |
Worldwide distribution: | Congo-Brazzavile, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, DRC, Zambia and Zimbabwe |
Zimbabwe distribution: | N,W,C,E |
Growth form(s): | Annual. |
Endemic status: | |
Red data list status: | |
Insects associated with this species: | |
Spot characters: | Display spot characters for this species |
Literature: |
Mapaura, A. & Timberlake, J. (eds) (2004). A checklist of Zimbabwean vascular plants Southern African Botanical Diversity Network Report No. 33 Sabonet, Pretoria and Harare Page 42. Radcliffe-Smith, A. (1996). Euphorbiaceae Flora Zambesiaca 9(4) Pages 61 - 63. |
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