Adenostemma macrophyllum (Blume) DC.

Candolle, A.P. de (1836) Prodromus 5: 113.

Usually flowers and fruits as a herb but occasionally flowers as a shrub about 1 m tall.

Leaf blades about 11.5-12 x 6.5-7 cm, petioles slender, about 2.5-3.5 cm long, shallowly grooved on the upper surface. Lateral veins about 3-4 on each side of the midrib. Petioles and stems clothed in short tortuous hairs.

Inflorescence an open cyme of heads. Heads cup-shaped, clothed in glandular hairs. Flowers hermaphrodite. Calyx reduced to three paddle-shaped lobes. Corolla about 3 mm long, lobes less than 0.5 mm. Pollen white.

Fruits borne in clusters. Individual fruits about 3.5 x 1 mm, tuberculate, calyx persistent at the base. Seeds about 3 mm long. Embryo with the cotyledons about the same size as the radicle.

Cotyledons orbicular, about 7-9 mm diam. Petioles slender, about 2-4 mm long. First pair of leaves ovate, leaf blades about 25-30 x 15-20 mm, both the upper and lower surface sparsely clothed in short white hairs. At the tenth leaf stage: leaf blade about 7.5-9 x 6-6.5 cm, triangular to broadly ovate, apex acuminate to apiculate, base very attenuate. Petiole about 1.5-2 cm long, grooved on the upper surface. Stems, petioles and lower leaf blade surface densely clothed in simple, erect, hooked hairs. Seed germination time 39 to 52 days.

Occurs in NEQ and possibly the northern part of CEQ, with a disjunction to south eastern Queensland. Altitudinal range from 150-1150 m. Grows in rain forest and wet sclerophyll forest in lowland and upland situations. Also found in Malesia.