Acalypha australisL.

Asian copperleaf

WFO wfo-0000333666 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Acalypha australis, photographed by Thomas Mesaglio
fig. a Thomas Mesaglio, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-04-29 / obs. 192855773

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 20 botanical countries

Regions where Acalypha australis is native: China North-Central, China South-Central, China Southeast, Hainan, Inner Mongolia, Japan, Korea, Manchuria, Nansei-shoto, Primorye, Qinghai, Taiwan, Tibet, East Himalaya, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Philippines, South China Sea, Vietnam China North-CentralChina South-CentralChina SoutheastHainanInner MongoliaJapanManchuriaPrimoryeQinghaiTaiwanTibetEast HimalayaLaosMyanmarNepalPhilippinesVietnam KoreaNansei-shotoSouth China Sea
Native distribution of Acalypha australis, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
China North-Central CHN ASIA-TEMPERATE
China South-Central CHC
China Southeast CHS
Hainan CHH
Inner Mongolia CHI
Japan JAP
Korea KOR
Manchuria CHM
Nansei-shoto NNS
Primorye PRM
Qinghai CHQ
Taiwan TAI
Tibet CHT
East Himalaya EHM ASIA-TROPICAL
Laos LAO
Myanmar MYA
Nepal NEP
Philippines PHI
South China Sea SCS
Vietnam VIE

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 79 in flower of 146 examined

Proportion of examined Acalypha australis in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 2 3 too few examined
Feb 2 2 too few examined
Mar 1 2 too few examined
Apr 3 4 too few examined
May 3 8 38% 14% to 69%
Jun 2 12 17% 5% to 45%
Jul 11 21 52% 32% to 72%
Aug 23 38 61% 45% to 74%
Sep 22 33 67% 50% to 80%
Oct 8 20 40% 22% to 61%
Nov 1 2 too few examined
Dec 1 1 too few examined

Peak flowering in Sep. Each bar is the share of Acalypha australis observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 79 of 146 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 6 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 24 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Acalypha australis f. glareosa (Rupr.) H.Hara
  • Acalypha australis f. lanceolata (Hayata) Hurus.
  • Acalypha australis f. velutina (Honda) Ohwi
  • Acalypha australis var. glareosa (Rupr.) Nakai
  • Acalypha australis var. lanceolata Hayata
  • Acalypha australis var. velutina Honda
  • Acalypha chinensis Roxb.
  • Acalypha gemina (Lour.) Spreng.
  • Acalypha gemina var. genuina Müll.Arg.
  • Acalypha gemina var. lanceolata Hayata
  • Acalypha indica var. minima (Keng) S.F.Huang & T.C.Huang
  • Acalypha lanceolata Benth.
  • Acalypha lanceolata Wall.
  • Acalypha minima H.Keng
  • Acalypha pauciflora Hornem.
  • Acalypha pauciflora f. glareosa (Rupr.) Regel
  • Acalypha pauciflora f. umbrosa (Rupr.) Regel
  • Acalypha pauciflora var. glareosa Rupr.
  • Acalypha pauciflora var. umbrosa Rupr.
  • Acalypha sessilis Poir.
  • Acalypha virgata Thunb.
  • Meterana dimidiata Raf.
  • Ricinocarpus australis (L.) Kuntze
  • Urtica gemina Lour.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.