Potato Bush

Glabrous plants have been recognized as var. glaber , but such forms occur sporadically throughout the range of the species and are of dubious taxonomic value.

Shrubs to 4 m tall, monoecious; branches brownish; young branchlets, leaves, and pedicels yellowish pubescent or puberulent or glabrous. Stipules subulate-lanceolate, brown, 1-3 mm, hard and spiny when dry; petiole 2-5 mm; leaf blade varying in shape, mostly elliptic to ovate, 1-5(-6.5) × 0.7-3 cm, membranous to papery, base obtuse to rounded, apex acute or obtuse to rounded; lateral veins 5-7 pairs, usually prominent on both surfaces. Inflorescence an axillary fascicle, rarely a cyme, with 2-10 male and 1 or 2 female flowers. Male flowers: pedicels delicate, 5-10 mm; sepals 5 or 6, in 2 series, ovate or obovate, unequal, 0.7-1.5 × 0.5-1.2 mm, entire; disk glands 5, scalelike, ca. 0.5 mm wide; stamens 5, erect, 3 with longer filaments coherent in a central column, 2 with shorter filaments, free; anthers triangular, longitudinally dehiscent. Female flowers: pedicels 4-8 mm, delicate; sepals 5 or 6, in 2 series, unequal, broadly ovate, 1-1.6 × 0.9-1.2 mm, puberulent inside at base; disk glands 5 or 6, oblong or obovate; ovary 4-12-celled, smooth; styles free, bifid at apex, lobes linear, revolute and connivent over top of ovary. Fruit a berry, globose to oblate, 4-6 mm wide, black and dark purplish at maturity, 4-12-celled, 8-16-seeded. Seeds trigonous, 1.6-2 mm, brown. Fl. Mar-Jun, fr. Jun-Oct. x = 13.

Tropical Africa, India, Himalaya (Kumaun to Sikkim), Ceylon, S.E. Asia, S. China, Malaysia.

Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Hunan, Jiangxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Yunnan [Bhutan, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Nepal, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam; W Africa, NE Australia].

400-760 m

Open forests, scrub; 200-800 m.

Cicca microcarpa Bentham ; C. reticulata (Poiret) Kurz; Glochidion microphyllum Ridley; Kirganelia multiflora Baillon; K. reticulata (Poiret) Baillon; K. sinensis Baillon; Phyllanthus dalbergioides Wallich ex J. J. Smith; P. erythrocarpus Ridley; P. microcarpus (Bentham) Müller Argoviensis; P. multiflorus Poiret; P. multiflorus Willdenow (1805), not Poiret (1804); P. reticulatus var. glaber Müller Argoviensis; P. sinensis Müller Argoviensis; P. takaoensis Hayata.

Phyllanthus reticulatus is a plant species described Jean Louis Marie Poiret; it is included in the family Phyllanthaceae.

This is an Asian species of Phyllanthus (but it was also introduced to Jamaica); it has been confused with P. polyspermus. In Vietnamese its name is phèn đen (sometimes diệp hạ châu mạng). It is also found in Northern Australia, where the aborigines of the Moyle River area use the wood for firesticks and call it Mirrinymirriny.

It is also found in abundance in the Terai areas of Uttar Pradesh (India) along the banks of ponds, which is called Sikati / Sikti सिकटी/सिक्टी in the local language.

Phyllanthus reticulatus is pollinated by several different species of Epicephala in East Asia. The adult moths pollinate the flowers but lay eggs in the P. reticulatus flowers' ovaries, where the emerging larvae consume some of the developing seeds.