A shrub or small tree up to 5 meters high, leaves; alternate, margins are toothed, long petiole, pinnately veined, flowers; bright red, axillary, terminal, in spikes, in racemes, styles; numerous, slender, descending elongated branches. Grown for its foliage and flowers, common to the tropics and sub tropics. Flowers throughout the year.
Acalypha wilkesiana
Acalypha wilkesiana is often cultivated as a hedge plant in the Philippines. Leaves are ovate, acuminate and reddish with streaks of crimson and bronze on both surfaces. Leaf margins are serrate. Flowers unisexual, small and inconspicuous arranged in dense spike inflorescence. Plant monoecious. Indigenous to the West Indies.
Aechmea coelestis
Epiphytic herb with narrow, concave gray-green leaves with broad white margins. Forming a rosette. The leaves are to 40 cm long with few marginal spines. Inflorescence is a branched reddish panicle with yellowish bracts, white calyx, and blue corolla. Native to Brazil.
Aerva sanguinolenta
Prostrate or ascending herb with slender, reddish stems rooting at the nodes when touching the ground. Leaves are opposite, ovate, to 5 cm long, red or maroon on both sides and with a sharp tip. Flowers are small, white and in axillary heads; the head is ovoid and to 2 cm long, with a peduncle to 5 cm long. Indigenous to Java, Malay and the Philippines. Grows gregariously, sometimes escaping cultivation and becomes a weed. Occasionally planted in gardens.
Ageratum conyzoides L.
This herb is a plant with a long rosette of fleshy, sharp pointed, green leaves, with margins and which are usually bent toward the middle part. Inflorescence up to 3m tall with greenish yellow flowers borne in a very large spike. Native to Mexico, recently introduced to the Philippines.
Aglaonema comutatum
A short, branching at base, making a low spreading plant. petiole equalling or shorter than blade, sheating; blade oblong or oblong lanceolate to ovate lanceolate, with thick midrib and few lateral nerves, peduncles in clusters from the lower sheaths, shorter than the petioles; spathe small, staright, green or yellowish, open above, finally withering. Upwards of 40 mall herbs of India and Malaysia, a number grown in hothouses for white-marked foliage and few suitable as house plants. Aglaone-ma: Greek, bright thread, perhaps referring to stamens.
Allamanda cathartica
Locally known as Campanilla. Tall, climbing, erect shrub, 2 to 4 meters high, leaves; whorls or opposite mostly of 3 to 4 the uppermost are scattered, lanceolate, the upper surface waxy shiny, flowers commonly yellow, spreading, corolla about 7 cm long, lobes ovate or oblong ovate, spreading, rounded, about 2 cm long thus assumes a funnel shape. Commonly cultivated in gardens throughout the Philippines. A native of tropical America, but widely distributed in tropical countries.
Allamanda nerifolia
This plant is a glabrous shrub growing to 1.5m tall, with milky sap and sometimes with a scandent branch. Leaves are opposite or whorled and at 2-5 at each node. Inflorescence is paniculate, flowers have a golden yellow corolla, striped orange at the throat, to 6cm across, and fruit is a globase and spiny capsule. It is native to tropical America, and propagated by stem cuttings.
Alternanthera cv
Kutsarita is a low, somewhat fleshy herb with oval variegated leaves that are green and white. Its flowers are small and inconspicuous on bracteate spicate inflorescence. This plant cultivar was produced from Alternanthera spp that originated from tropical America.
Antigonon leptosus
Locally known as Cadena de Amor (Sp.) and known in the West as Coral Vine, Corallita, Rosa de Montana, Pink Vine or Confederate Vine. Climbing, woody vines from thickened roots, leaves; bigger in size at the lower region, alternate, cordate, stem-clasping petioles. panicles; axillary sometimes terminal, the rachis; extended as a tendril, flowers; many in clusters, bright to deep pink sometimes white, about 1 cm. long, fascicled. In waste places but sometimes cultivated, flowers all the year. A native of Mexico, now cultivated in many tropical countries.
Arachis pintoi
Low, attached to the earth, prostate herbs, even-pinnate leaves, 2 to 3 pairs of leaflets, oblong to ob-ovate, spreading, hairy, massively branched, the stem are 30 to 80 cm long. flowers; axillary, few, in long calyx tube, bright yellow, 4-winged, pods; ripening under ground, oblong, leathery. Commonly cultivated in gardens, widely distributed throughout the Philippines. Flowering activity is greatly influenced by the presence of sunlight.
Asystasia gangetica
Common name zamboangita. Herb erect. Height up 50 cm. Leaves opposite, simple, o vate-cordate, margins entire, veins pinnately netted. Flowers in raceme inflorescence. Petals fused to form a corolla tube, cream, yellow or purple. Cultivated as hedges in the Philippines. Widely distributed in Asia and Africa.