Deeringia amaranthoides (Lam.) Merr.

Shrubs climbing. Stem 2-6 m tall, often with pendulous branches, hairy when young. Petiole 1-4 cm, glabrous; leaf blade ovate or ovate-lanceolate, at first sparsely villous, glabrescent, base acute, obtuse, rounded, or ovate-subtruncate, apex acuminate or acute, often unequal. Racemes axillary and terminal, arranged into complex thyrsoid structures; rachis pubescent. Bracts narrowly triangular, ca. 1.5 mm; bracteoles ovate, ca. 1 mm. Pedicel 2-3 mm. Flowers broadly spreading or reflexed at anthesis, glabrous, apex ?obtuse. Tepals light green or somewhat yellowish, tinged red in fruit, 1.5-2.5 mm. Filaments connate into a cup at base; stigmas 3, terete, reflexed in fruit. Berry red, globose, 4-7 mm in diam. Seeds 1-6, black, shiny, compressed-reniform. Fl. and fr. Oct-Mar. 2n = 16.

Small shrub or long-scandent, attaining 6 m or more, scrambling over bushes and trees or sprawling on the ground, branches often drooping. Stem and branches angled, glabrescent, in the young parts and in the inflorescence thinly to rather densely furnished with fine, multicellular hairs. Leaves ovate to oblong-ovate or lanceolate-oblong, cuneate to subtruncate at the base, acute or acuminate at the apex, very finely pilose when young but soon glabrescent, lamina 3-15 x 2-7 cm.; petiole 1-3 (-6) cm. Inflorescence of slender axillary and terminal, commonly divaricately branched and panicled many-flowered racemes, the individual racemes up to c. 15 x 0.6-1 cm, the terminal panicle large and broad. Bracts narrowly deltoid-lanceolate, acute, 1-1.5 mm; bracteoles ovate, acute to rather obtuse, 0.5-1 mm. Flowers evenly scattered and solitary or subfasciculate, subsessile or more commonly on slender pedicels up to c. 3 mm long. Perianth segments spreading, finally reflexed, reddish-green to green or cream with narrow, pale margins and a darker central vitta, oblong-ovate, obtuse, 1.5-2.25 mm. Filaments slender, finally reflexed, c. 1.5 times as long as the perianth. Stigmas 3, flexuose or often spiral, much longer than the short style; ovary roundish. Berry globose, scarlet, 4-6 mm. Seeds lenticular, c. 1-1.25 mm, black, shining, reticulate with slightly convex areolae.

Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Sichuan, Taiwan, Xizang, Yunnan [Bhutan, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Sikkim, Thailand, Vietnam; Australia].

Himalaya, India to China, Malaysia, Australia.

Distribution: Through India east to China (including Taiwan) and south through Malaysia and the Philippines to New Guinea and Australia.

600-1500 m

Hillsides; 100-2200 m.

Habitat in Pakistan, hedges and scrub forests to c. 1520 m-elsewhere similarly in bushy open spaces in forests, along forest margins, in hedges etc.

Achyranthes amaranthoides Lamarck, Encycl. 1: 548. 1785; Cladostachys amaranthoides (Lamarck) K. C. Kuan; C. frutescens D. Don.

Deeringia amaranthoides is a species of plant in the Amaranthaceae family and is distributed from the western Himalayas east across southern China, down through south east Asia and Indonesia, across New Guinea to parts of Australia.

It was first described as Achyranthes amaranthoides by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck in 1785 and reclassified as Deeringia amaranthoides by Elmer Drew Merrill in 1917.