DWARF CLEARWEED
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| File Size: 182 KB |
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Pilea pumila (A. Gray ) L.
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| Riley County, Kansas |
| Annual |
| Height: 4-28 inches |
| Family: Urticaceae - Nettle Family |
| Flowering Period: September,October |
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| Also Called: | | Canadian clearweed. | | Stems: | | Plants monoecious, glabrous, lacking stinging hairs, somewhat translucent. Stems erect or ascending, simple. | | Leaves: | | Cauline, opposite, simple; petiole .2 to 3.2 inches; blade ovate to elliptic, .8 to 5.2 inches long, .4 to 3.6 inches wide, margins dentate, apex acute to acuminate, 3 main veins. | | Inflorescences: | | Small cymes, axillary, crowded to lax, often arranged in small panicles. | | Flowers: | | Unisexual, ca. 1/25 inch across, staminate and pistillate flowers in same cyme; staminate flowers usually pedicillate, tepals 4, distinct; stamens 4; pistillate flowers usually sessile, tepals 3; style 1, deciduous. | | Fruits: | | Achenes, light colored or with fine purple streaks, flattened, ovate, .05 to .08 inch, partly covered by hood-like tepal. | | Habitat: | | Moist, rich woods and stream banks. | | Distribution: | | East half of Kansas. | | Origin: | | Native | | Uses: | | The Cherokee used the stems to alleviate itching and gave children an infusion of the plant to reduce hunger (Moerman 1998). | | Comments: | | Pilea, felt cap, alluding to the perianth covering the achene and pumila, dwarf. |
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| Dwarf clearweed flowering |  | | 146 KB | | Riley County, Kansas |
| | Dwarf clearweed habit |  | | 182 KB | | Riley County, Kansas |
| | Dwarf clearweed |  | | 107 KB | | Riley County, Kansas |
| | Dwarf clearweed flowers |  | | 135 KB | | Riley County, Kansas |
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