Acalypha alopecuroidea

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Common Name: foxtail copperleaf

Family: Euphorbiaceae

Common Synonyms: none

USDA Hardiness Zone: NA

Growth Habit: Herb

Origin: Tropical Americas

FISC Category: -

FDACS Listed Noxious Weed: No

Introduction Date: Earliest Florida specimen vouchered in 1974, but an Alabama specimen was vouchered in 1892

IFAS Assessment:

  • North: Not Assessed
  • Central: Not Assessed
  • South: Not Assessed
Red stem and flowers in an inflorescence
Robert Pilla

Description

Plant 15-100 cm tall; petioles 4-70 mm long; leaf blades 2-12 cm long, 1.2-6.5 cm wide. Pistillate bracts densely crowded, unlobed with linear tips, with hairs to 2 mm long, the inflorescence having a bottlebrush appearance. Petiole 0.6-1.8 times as long as the leaf blade; stems, petioles, peduncles, and pistillate bracts stipitate-glandular; staminate inflorescence axillary, pistillate inflorescence terminal; styles unbranched or rarely 2-fid

Habitat

Disturbed areas

Comments

Flowering and fruiting late summer–fall

Map of species distribution

Control Methods

  • Manual: NA
  • Chemical: NA
  • Biological: NA

Control Notes

NA

References

Global Biodiversity Information Facility. 2021. Acalypha alopecuroidea Jacq. in GBIF Secretariat. GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 28 April 2022.

eFloras (2008). Published on the Internet http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=1&taxon_id=250101514 [accessed 27 July 2022] Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, MO & Harvard University Herbaria, Cambridge, MA.

Wunderlin, R. P., B. F. Hansen, A. R. Franck, and F. B. Essig. 2022. Atlas of Florida Plants (http://florida.plantatlas.usf.edu/). [S. M. Landry and K. N. Campbell (application development), USF Water Institute.] Institute for Systematic Botany, University of South Florida, Tampa.

Top-down of leaves and beginning inflorescence
Neptalí Ramírez Marcial