The following description is from Flora Zambesiaca (2016): Erect or ascending, bushy perennial herb (commonly cultivated as an annual), c. 5–45 cm tall, stem and branches villous when young but soon glabrescent, older parts terete, younger bluntly quadrangular. Leaves narrowly or more broadly elliptical to oblanceolate or rhomboid-ovate, acute to acuminate at the apex, attenuate into a slender, indistinctly demarcated petiole below, thinly furnished with fine, whitish hairs to subglabrous, often reddish or purple suffused and not rarely variegated. Heads axillary, sessile, usually solitary, globose to ovoid, 4–6 mm in diam.;bracts pale, deltoid-ovate, c. 2 mm long, glabrous, lacerate-margined, aristate with the excurrent midrib;bracteoles similar but slightly shorter. Tepals white, lanceolate to oblong-elliptic, 3.5–4 mm long, acute, mucronate with the excurrent midrib;outer 2 prominently 3-nerved below and darker in the nerved area, with a line of whitish, minutely barbellate hairs on each side of this area, the hairs becoming denser towards the base of the tepal;inner 2 slightly shorter, narrower and less rigid, mostly 1–2-nerved;central tepal intermediate. Stamens 5, at anthesis much exceeding the ovary and style, the alternating pseudostaminodes subequalling the filaments plus anthers, narrowly oblong, laciniate at the apex. Ovary strongly compressed, obpyriform, 0.6 mm long, style about the same length. Ripe fruits and seeds usually not seen.
Related invasive species
- Alternanthera bettzickiana
Related Farm Practice
- Flora
There are no published reports about the invasiveness of A. bettzickiana, a cultivated herb not known from the wild other than where escaped from cultivation. In most of the countries where it occurs, it is reported as an ornamental species (Missouri Botanical Garden, 2016). In Palau, although is listed as only planted near the Capitol, it is listed as a species of possible threat without further information (Space et al., 2009). In Texas it is not considered as a threat to native plant communities, although occasionally escaping to disturbed areas near where planted (Nesom, 2009). It is reported as a short-term escape for India (Sankaran et al., 2014) and common and not invasive in Taiwan (Wu et al., 2004). It is also escaped and naturalized in the British Virgin Islands, Costa Rica, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Peru and St. Lucia (D’ Arcy, 1967;Graveson, 2012;Missouri Botanical Garden, 2016), but without further details.