Boerhaavia coccinea

Boerhaavia coccinea Mill. Gard. Diet. ed. 8. Boerhaavia no. 4
Boerhaavia Boerhaavia Boerhaavia Boerhaavia Boerhaavia Boerhaavia Boerhaavia
1768.
diffusa Sw. Obs. Bot. 10. 1791. Not B. diffusa 1,. 1753
paniculata Rich. Act. Soc. Hist. Nat. Par. 1: 105. 1792.
adscendens Willd. Sp. PI. 1: 19. 1797.
decumbens Vahl, Enum. PI. 1: 284. 1804.
laxa Pers. Syn. PL 1: 36. 1805.
diffusa paniculata Kuntze, Rev. Gen. 533. 1891.
coccinea parcehirsuta Heimerl, Symb. Ant. 7: 212. 1912.
Perennial, from a stout or slender, often fusiform, somewhat fleshy root; stems few or numerous, ascending or procumbent, 2-10 dm. long, sparsely branched, minutely puberulent below or sometimes sparsely villous, especially at the nodes, glabrous above, brownish; petioles slender, 0.3-3 cm. long, usually sparsely villous; leaf-blades rhombic-orbicular, broadly rhombic-ovate, oval, or oval-oblong, 2-5.5 cm. long, 1.5-5 cm. wide, subcordate to broadly rounded at the base, broadly rounded to obtuse or rarely acute at the apex, entire or usually subsinuate, bright-green above, pale beneath, epunctate, glabrous or obscurely puberulent, villous-ciliate, rarely villous beneath along the veins; inflorescence of ample, naked, lax, terminal or axillary cymes, much branched, the branches slender, ascending or divergent, glabrous, the flowers subsessile in glomerules of 2-4 on the ends of filiform peduncles 3-10 mm. long, the bracts minute, lanceolate or ovate, deciduous; perianth reddish-green, 2 mm. broad, minutely glandular-puberulent; stamens 2, short-exserted ; fruit narrowly obovoid, 3-4 mm. long, rounded at the apex, densely glandular-puberulent or glandular-pilose, 5-sulcate, the angles and sulci smooth.
Type locality: Jamaica.
Distribution: Peninsular Florida; adventive on ballast in eastern North Carolina^Bahamas and throughout the West Indies ; Costa Rica ; also in the warmer parts of South America and Africa.