Japanese name: ホソバツルノゲイトウ（細葉蔓野鶏頭） Scientific name:Alternanthera denticulata
[Overview]
An annual.
The stems creep along the ground, root at the nodes, grow to about 50 cm long, and branch freely.
The nodes have white soft hairs, and the internodes at first have white hairs arranged in two rows, but later become almost hairless.
Leaves are simple and opposite, linear to linear-lanceolate, 2.5–6 cm long and 0.3–0.6 cm wide, and almost entire.
The flowers are white and 5-petaled, borne in globose clusters in the leaf axils.
The petals are 2–2.5 mm long and dry and membranous.
The fruit is a utricle.
[History]
It arrived in Japan around the middle of the Meiji period, and is found along roadsides and on the ridges of rice paddies from the southern Kanto region westward to the Ryukyu Islands.
