Plants perennial. Stems 0.75-1.5 m, glabrous or slightly pubescent. Leaf blades ovate-elliptic, 2.5-13.5 × 0.2-6.8 cm, base tapering, apex acute to acuminate, pubescent on veins abaxially, short-pubescent adaxially, varying to glabrous or glabrescent. Inflorescences 2-4 cm in flower, elongating to 21 cm in fruit; bracteoles spinose; basal wings attached at base and sometimes slightly on sides. Flowers: tepals 5, 4-5 mm; pseudostaminodes with margins entire, denticulate, or slightly 2-lobed at apex. Utricles elliptic, 2.5 mm.

Flowering summer. Wooded riverbanks; 100-200 m; introduced; Ky., Ohio, W.Va.; Asia.

The plants of Achyranthes japonica in our area evidently belong to var. hachijoensis Honda, which has glabrous or glabrescent leaves.

Perennial 7-15 dm; lvs elliptic, 3-13 נ1.5-7 cm, acute or acuminate, tapering to a petiole to 3.5 cm, short-hairy above and on the veins beneath; spikes at first dense, elongating to as much as 2 dm and then more open; fls divergent at anthesis, sharply reflexed in fr, each subtended by a membranous bract 2 mm and 2 rigid, subulate-spinose bracteoles 2-4 mm, each bracteole with 2 basal, suborbicular, membranous auricles, the bracteoles and fl falling as a unit; sep 5, lance-linear, 4-5 mm, acuminate; sterile lobes of the androecium short, broad, subentire; fr oblong, 2.5 mm, its slender style 1 mm. Wooded, annually flooded river-banks; native of e. Asia, intr. in Ky. and W.Va. Late summer.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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