生活型

shrub-herb

形態特徵

• An erect perennial herb or shrub, 1 m high or more; bark greyish-brown, lenticellate; old stems rough, glabrous; young shoots and floral axes terete, slender, densely covered with simple and stellate pubescence.
• Leaves mem¬branaceous, broradly ovate, variable in shape, 4–8 cm long, 3–6 cm wide, acuminate at apex, obtuse or rounded, rarely subcordate at base, 3-nerved, irregularly serrate-dentate, usually glandular at serrations, slightly or obscurely 3-lobed; upper surface covered with simple pubescence, green; lower surface covered with stellate pubescence, greyish-green; upper leaves usually oblong; petioles 0.5–6 cm long, slender, pubescent.
• Inflorescence axillary, sometimes terminal; cymes of 2–3 cymules in lax clusters; peduncles 1–2(–3) mm long; pedicels 2–3 mm long; bracteoles narrowly elliptic; buds oblong, 4 mm long or nearly so, with apical appendages 0.5 mm long, pubescent; sepals 5, linear, apiculate, 6 mm long, green, slightly covered with stellate pubescence without, yellowish-brown and glabrescent within; petals 5, narrowly elliptic-obovate, yellow, subequalling sepals; gonophore rather slender, short; glands oblong; stamens 15 or more; filaments glabrous, retrorsely serrate; ovary ovoid, about 1 mm long; spinules numerous, recurved upward; style 3–5 mm long, slim; stigma acute, 3-¬lobed or nearly so.
• Capsules spinose, indehiscent, generally orbicular, 3–5 mm in diameter at maturity, glabrescent or slightly pubescent; spines 50–75, 1.5–2 mm long, slender, sparsely retrosely pilosulose at base 1/2–2/3 of length, hooked at tip, conically enlarged at base; locuci 3, 2-seeded in each; seeds 6 rarely all mature.

分布

• 台灣 : Growing in fields and waste places in the southern part of the island.
• 世界 : The Philippines and tropical regions of the New World.

引證標本

Flowering time from October to January.

參考文獻

• LIU, TANG-SHUI and LO, HANN-CHIANG, Flora of Taiwan, second edition 3: 735. .  (Fl. Taiwan 2nd edit.)