Japanese name: ナガエコミカンソウ（長柄小蜜柑草） Scientific name:Phyllanthus tenellus
[Overview]
An annual seen along roadsides and on vacant lots, sometimes growing taller than 70 cm.
The stem is erect, much branched, and often tinged with purple.
The branches extend horizontally to 3.5–22.5 cm long, and the leaves at the nodes where branches arise are scale-like.
Each branch bears 9–35 leaves arranged alternately in two rows, which at first glance look like pinnately compound leaves.
The leaves are simple, elliptic, 0.8–2.4 cm long and 0.5–1.3 cm wide, and hairless on both surfaces.
The underside of the leaf is powdery white.
The leaf margin is entire.
The petiole is 0.6–1 mm long.
There are male and female flowers, borne in leaf axils in clusters of 1–6.
Neither the male nor the female flowers have petals.
The fruit is a spherical capsule 2 mm in diameter with a smooth surface.
The fruit is borne at the tip of an elongated stalk 4–8 mm long.
The seed surface is not wrinkled and has many small projections.
[History]
It was first recorded in Kanagawa in 1987, and has since been found naturalized in various places.
