False Chaff Flower

Chamissoa altissima (Jacq.) H. B. K. Nov. Gen. & Sp. 2: 197
1817.
Celosia paniculata I,. Sp. PL ed. 2. 298. 1762. Not C. paniculata I,. 1753. Achyranthes altissima Jacq. Enum. PI. Carib. 17. 1762. Celosia sparsa Forsyth; Moq. in DC. Prodr. 13 2 : 250, as synonym. 1849. Achyranthes baccata Pav.; Moq. in DC. Prodr. 13 2 : 250, as synonym. 1849. Chamissoa altissima laxifiora Moq. in DC. Prodr. 13 2 : 251. 1849. Chamissoa altissima densiflora Moq. in DC. Prodr. 13 2 : 251. 1849. Chamissoa Martii Moq. in DC. Prodr. 13 2 : 252. 1849. Kokera paniculata Kuntze, Rev. Gen. PI. 542. 1891.
Stems stout, suffrutescent at the base, 6-20 dm. long or more, divaricately branched, usually climbing over trees or shrubs, sometimes erect, smooth or sulcate, green, glabrous or sparsely pilose; petioles slender, 1-3.5 cm. long; leaf-blades 6-18 cm. long, 2-8.5 cm. wide, ovate, ovate-oblong, lanceolate, or oval, abruptly acuminate or acute at the apex, acute to truncate at the base, glabrous, or sparsely pilose beneath, bright-green; flowers in large terminal and axillary, naked or leafy panicles composed of numerous stout or slender, densely or loosely flowered spikes 2-20 cm. long and 0.6-2 cm. thick, the sterile spikes more slender and less densely flowered than the fertile ones, the rachises of the inflorescence commonly pubescent; flowers greenishwhite ; bracts thin, about half as long as the sepals, ovate or broadly ovate, mucronate; sepals 3-4 mm. long, oval to oblong or ovate, acute or acuminate, sometimes mucronate, firm in age, carinate, prominently and coarsely nerved; style shorter than the elongate stigmas; utricle globose or oblong-ovoid, equaling or slightly exceeding the sepals, margined and usually depressed at the apex, circumscissile at or below the middle; aril bivalvate, enclosing the seed; seed flat, 2-2.5 mm. in diameter, black and lustrous, punctulate.
Type locality: Jamaica.
Distribution: In thickets, subtropical Florida (?) ; southern and western Mexico and throughout Central America; West Indies; also from Colombia to Peru and Brazil.

Chamissoa altissima, or false chaff flower, is native to North and South America. In Brazil it grows in the Cerrado vegetation.