Iresine galea

Iresine galea (Ib&nez) Standley, Contr. U. S. Nat. Herb
18: 94. 1916.
Gomphrena latifolia Mart. & Gal. Bull. Acad. Brux. lO 1 : 349. 1843.
Alternanthera latifolia Moq. in DC. Prodr. 13 2 : 351. 1849.
Achyranthes Calea Ibafiez, Naturaleza 4: 79. 1879.
Iresine latifolia Benth. & Hook. Gen. PL 3: 42. 1880. Not I. latifolia D. Dietr. 1839.
Hebanthe mollis Hemsl. Biol. Centr. Am. Bot. 3: 20. 1882.
Iresine laxa S. Wats. Proc. Am. Acad. 21: 454. 1886.
Gossypianthus mollis Kuntze, Rev. Gen. 543. 1891.
Erect shrub, 1.5-2.5 meters high, much branched, the branches slender, ascending, densely and finely villous-canescent when young, glabrate in age; petioles 2-15 mm. long; leaf-blades broadly ovate, ovate-oblong, or lance-ovate, 3-10.5 cm. long, 1.3-7 cm. wide, acuminate at the apex or rarely obtuse or even rounded, rounded or obtuse at the base, sometimes shortdecurrent, thinly scaberulous-canescent or glabrate on the upper surface and green, densely or sparsely pilose-sericeous beneath; flowers dioecious, in broad open terminal panicles, these leafy below, the branches divaricate or ascending, often flexuous, the spikelets densely flowered, short or elongate, sessile or pedunculate, the rachis lanate ; bracts and hractlets of the staminate flowers one third as long as the sepals, broadly ovate, rounded to acutish at the apex, scarious, whitish, or stramineous, more or less villous; sepals narrowly oblong, obtuse, 2 mm. long, pilose; filaments shorter than the sepals, the staminodia very short, broad, dissected at the apex into short filiform segments, or rarely subentire; bracts and bractlets of the pistillate flowers nearly as long as the sepals, these lanceolate, attenuate, 1.5 mm. long, densely pilose with whitish or brownish hairs, very faintly nerved; style short, the stigmas slender, elongate; utricle globose-ovoid.
Type locality: District of Iziicar de Matamoros, Puebla.
Distribution: Southern Lower California, Sonora, and Coahuila to Costa Rica.