Common Coleus

Herbs erect or ascending. Stems usually purple, puberulent, branched. Petiole 1-5 cm; leaf blade ovate, 4-12.5 × 2.5-9 cm, membranous, yellow, dark red, purple, or green, puberulent, sparsely red-brown glandular abaxially, base broadly cuneate to rounded, margin crenate-serrate or crenate, apex obtuse to short acuminate. Panicles 5-10(-25) × 3-5(-8) cm, puberulent; verticillasters many flowered, ca. 1.5 cm in diam.; bracts deciduous, broadly ovate, 2-3 mm, caudate, glandular. Pedicel ca. 2 mm. Calyx campanulate, 2-3 mm in flower, to 7 mm in fruit, 10-veined, minutely hispid, glandular; middle lobe of upper lip broadly ovate, reflexed in fruit; lateral lobes ovate, ca. 1/2 as long as middle lobe; lower lip rhombic, longer than upper lip, lobes narrowly triangular. Corolla purple to blue, 0.8-1.3 cm, puberulent, tube abruptly recurved, throat to 2.5 mm wide, upper lip erect. Nutlets brown, broadly ovoid or globose, 1-1.2 mm, flattened, shiny. Fl. Jul.

Streamsides, open areas, hills, fields, forests. Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Taiwan, cultivated in all provinces [India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines; Pacific Islands]