Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Acalypha nemorum

Male flowers (spike), and female flowers (single, red). Australian Plant Image Index, photographer Murray Fagg, inland from Coffs Harbour

Male flowers and leaves. Photographer Don Wood, Australian National Botanic Gardens, Canberra, ACT

Common name

Large-leaf acalypha

Family

Euphorbiaceae

Where found

Rainforest (upright) and exposed headlands (prostrate). Coast and ranges north from from the Nowra district.

Notes

Shrub to 4 m tall or sprawling to prostrate. Bark flaky. Stems densely hairy with simple hairs, becoming hairless. Leaves alternating up the stems, 2-15 cm long, 10-40 mm wide, variable in shape, both surfaces usually densely hairy, rarely more or less hairless; veins prominent, 3-veined at the base, upper surface wrinkled between the veins, margins shallowly toothed to scalloped, bases rounded to cordate, tips blunt with a mucro. Male and female flowers on the same plant. Male flowers green, with 4 'petals', each 0.7-0.9 mm long, in an elongated cluster 20-50 mm long. Female flowers with 3 'petals', each 0.5-0.8 mm long, in clusters of 1-3, at the bases of leaf-like bracts. Occasionally male and female flowers in the same cluster with the males above a single female flower.

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Acalypha~nemorum  (accessed 2 January, 2021)