Herbst's Bloodleaf

herbstii: named after Mr Herbst, propagator at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

South America

Iresine herbstii Hook. Gard. Chron. 1864: 654. Jl 1864
Achyranthes ? Verschaffellii Lemaire, 111. Hortic. 11: pi. 409. Au 1864. Iresine Verschaffeltii Lemaire, 111. Hortic. 11: under pi. 418. N 1864.
Annual; stems erect or ascending, rather stout and succulent, usually branched, sparsely shortvillosulous, especially about the nodes, becoming glabrate in age, the internodes short or elongate; leaves numerous, often with fascicles of smaller ones in the axils, the petioles slender, 1-5 cm. long, sparsely shortvillous or glabrate; blades suborbicular or ovate-orbicular, 2.5-6.5 cm. long, and usually of equal or greater breadth, rounded to truncate at the base, usually short-decurrent, deeply retuse at the apex, or sometimes merely rounded, or the uppermost acute, thick and succulent, purplish-red, or green and striped with yellow or pink along the veins, glabrous on the upper surface or sparsely scaberulous, beneath rather sparsely furnished with short, appressed, often lustrous yellowish hairs, glabrate in age; flowers dioecious, the panicles naked or nearly so, usually much branched, 1-2 dm. long, the slender branches ascending or spreading, shortvillous with usually lustrous hairs, the spikelets slender, loosely flowered, sessile or short-pedicellate; flowers stramineous, the pistillate ones copiously lanate; bracts and bractlets ovate-orbicular, obtuse, glabrous, half as long as the sepals, entire; sepals about 1 mm. long, ovate to oblong, obtuse or acutish, those of the pistillate flowers 3-nerved; utricle shorter than the sepals; seed 0.5 mm. in diameter.
Type locality: Described from cultivated plants.
Distribution: Brazil; frequent in cultivation; naturalized in southern Mexico and in Guadeloupe, and probably elsewhere in the West Indies.

Iresine herbstii, or Herbst's bloodleaf, is a species of flowering plant in the family Amaranthaceae. Some call this plant the chicken gizzard plant.

Iresine herbstii in Funchal, Madeira

Iresine herbstii in Athens, Greece