Acalypha petiolarisKrauss

WFO wfo-0000216909 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Acalypha petiolaris, photographed by Mahomed Desai
fig. a Mahomed Desai, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-10 / obs. 196766549
Acalypha petiolaris, photographed by Suvarna Parbhoo Mohan
fig. b Suvarna Parbhoo Mohan, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 157561521
Acalypha petiolaris, photographed by Sunčana Bradley
fig. c Sunčana Bradley, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 106414068
Acalypha petiolaris, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. d Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 59127050
Acalypha petiolaris, photographed by Robert Taylor
fig. e Robert Taylor, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 57867168
Acalypha petiolaris, photographed by grabbarg
fig. f grabbarg, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 58568029
Acalypha petiolaris, photographed by Lutendo Mudzielwana
fig. g Lutendo Mudzielwana, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 24804239
Acalypha petiolaris, photographed by Nicola van Berkel
fig. h Nicola van Berkel, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 15214570

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 32 botanical countries

Regions where Acalypha petiolaris is native: Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Provinces, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, DR Congo, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Kenya, KwaZulu-Natal, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Northern Provinces, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sudan-South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe AngolaBeninBotswanaBurundiCameroonCape ProvincesCentral African RepublicChadCongoDR CongoEritreaEswatiniEthiopiaGuineaGuinea-BissauIvory CoastKenyaKwaZulu-NatalMalawiMaliMozambiqueNamibiaNigeriaNorthern ProvincesRwandaSenegalSierra LeoneSudan-South SudanTanzaniaUgandaZambiaZimbabwe
Native distribution of Acalypha petiolaris, 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.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Angola ANG AFRICA
Benin BEN
Botswana BOT
Burundi BUR
Cameroon CMN
Cape Provinces CPP
Central African Republic CAF
Chad CHA
Congo CON
DR Congo ZAI
Eritrea ERI
Eswatini SWZ
Ethiopia ETH
Guinea GUI
Guinea-Bissau GNB
Ivory Coast IVO
Kenya KEN
KwaZulu-Natal NAT
Malawi MLW
Mali MLI
Mozambique MOZ
Namibia NAM
Nigeria NGA
Northern Provinces TVL
Rwanda RWA
Senegal SEN
Sierra Leone SIE
Sudan-South Sudan SUD
Tanzania TAN
Uganda UGA
Zambia ZAM
Zimbabwe ZIM

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 40 in flower of 43 examined

Peak flowering in Oct. Each bar is the share of Acalypha petiolaris 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. 40 of 43 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 8 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 27 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 brachiata Krauss
  • Acalypha chariensis Beille
  • Acalypha haplostyla Pax
  • Acalypha haplostyla var. longifolia De Wild.
  • Acalypha hirsuta Hochst. ex A.Rich.
  • Acalypha languida E.Mey. & Sond.
  • Acalypha rehmannii Pax
  • Acalypha senegalensis Pax & K.Hoffm.
  • Acalypha senensis Klotzsch
  • Acalypha senensis var. chariensis (Beille) Hutch.
  • Acalypha senensis var. haplostyla (Pax) Hutch.
  • Acalypha sidifolia A.Rich.
  • Acalypha tenuis Müll.Arg.
  • Acalypha tenuis var. eglandulosa Müll.Arg.
  • Acalypha tenuis var. glandulosa Müll.Arg.
  • Acalypha villicaulis Hochst. ex A.Rich.
  • Acalypha villicaulis Müll.Arg.
  • Acalypha villicaulis var. minor Müll.Arg.
  • Acalypha zambesica Müll.Arg.
  • Acalypha zambesica var. brevistyla Beille
  • Ricinocarpus languidus Kuntze
  • Ricinocarpus petiolaris (Hochst. ex C.Krauss) Kuntze
  • Ricinocarpus senensis (Klotzsch) Kuntze
  • Ricinocarpus sidifolius Kuntze

and 3 more.

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. 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.