Sida acuta

Species: Sida acuta

English Name: Acute Sida

Chinese Name: 黃花稔

Family: Malvaceae

Description:
Subshrubs or herbs erect, 1-2 m tall. Branchlets pilose or subglabrous. Leaves ± distichous; stipules filiform, 4-6 mm, often longer than petiole, usually persistent; petiole 4-6 mm, sparsely pilose; leaf blade ovate, oblong, lanceolate, or linear-lanceolate, 2-5 × 0.4-1 cm, both surfaces glabrous or sparsely stellate pilose, rarely with simple hairs adaxially, base obtuse, margin dentate, sometimes partly entire toward its base, apex acute or acuminate. Flowers solitary or paired, axillary, sometimes congested at stem apex. Pedicel 4-12 mm, pilose, articulate at middle. Calyx shallowly cup-shaped, connate in basal 1/2, ca. 6 mm, mostly glabrous, margins often ciliate, lobes 5, caudate. Corolla yellow, less often white or yellow-orange, 8-10 mm in diam.; petals obovate, 6-7 mm, ciliate, base attenuate, apex rounded. Filament tube ca. 4 mm, sparsely hirsute. Schizocarp nearly globose; mericarps (4-)6(-9), segmentiform-tetrahedral, ca. 3.5 mm, basally transversely ridged, side walls reticulate-veined, glabrous, apex beaked, ± extending into 2 awns, apically dehiscent. Seed trigonous, ca. 2 mm, glabrous except around hilum. Fl. winter-spring.

Photos used under a Creative Commons license

References:

– Wu ZY, Raven PH, Hong DY (eds) (2007). Flora of China, Volume 12: Hippocastanaceae through Theaceae. Science Press, Beijing, and Missouri Bot Garden Press, St. Louis