Alternanthera sessilis

Alternanthera sessilis (L.) DC., Cat. Pl. Horti Monsp. 77. 1813; Melville, Kew Bull. 172. 1958; Maheshwari, Illustr. Fl. Delhi f. 181. 1966; Kaur & Sharma, Fl. Sirmaur 535. 2004; Singh & Sharma, Fl. Chamba Dist. 588. 2006; Fl. China @ eFloras.org 5: 427; Fl. North Amer. @ eFloras.org 4: 450; Fl. Pak. @ eFloras.org p. 41; Gomphrena sessilis L., Sp. Pl. ed. 1. 225: 1753.

Annual or perennial herb; in moist conditions or wet places, plants ascending or prostrate with stems rooting at nodes, much branched, 10-45 cm tall. Stem and branches green or purplish, with a narrow line of whitish hairs down each side of the stem and tuft of white hairs in the branch and leaf axils, otherwise glabrous, striate, quadrangular, +/- fistular. Leaves opposite, subsessile, glabrous or pilose; petiole 1-4 mm long, pilose; leaf blade linear-lanceolate to oblong, oval or obovate-spatulate, 2-9 cm x 0.5-1.3 cm, blunt to acute at apex, cuneate to attenuate at base, glabrous or thinly pilose on lower surface, margin entire or slightly serrate (or serrulate). Inflorescence spike heads, sessile, axillary solitary or in clusters of up to 5, at first globose, later cylindric, 4-8 mm long and ca. 5 mm in diameter; flowers dense; rachis densely white hairy; bracts scarious, white deltoid-ovate, mucronate with excurrent midrib, glabrous, ca. 1 mm long; bracteoles similar, 1-1.5 mm, persistent. Tepals 5, free, oval-elliptic, equal, scarious, 2-3 mm x ca. 1 mm, shortly mucronate with excurrent midrib, 1-nerved. Stamens 3, anthers 3, filaments ca. 0.7 mm, connate into a cup at base; anthers oblong, ca. 0.25 mm long, pseudostaminodes subulate, shorter than filaments. Ovary strongly compressed, +/- roundish, ca. 0.5 mm x 0.5 mm, unilocular with solitary ovule; style very short; stigma capitate. Utricle enclosed in perianth, obovoid, strongly compressed, apex retuse, dark brown, 2-2.5 mm. Seed ca. 1 mm long, ovoid, lenticular, brown.

Flowering and Fruiting: July to November Common Names: Sessile Joyweed, Stalkless Joyweed, Dwarf copperleaf Joyweed; Garundi, Guroo (Hindi)