The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Alchornea glandulosa is a gnarled, mostly evergreen tree from southern Brazil that grows 10 to 20 m tall, typically in riparian forest. It is a pioneer species; there is little horticultural information specific to it, so care notes are general for the genus.
Alchornea glandulosa is a tree species of the Acalyphoideae native to South America, growing in southern Brazil from Minas Gerais to Rio Grande do Sul. It is locally known as tamanqueiro, tapiá or amor seco. This gnarled tree grows preferentially in riparian forest, where it a common pioneer species growing to a height of 10–20 m. It is essentially evergreen, though in the hot austral summer months there is a more pronounced changeover of leaves, and branches are denuded to some extent.
Given the fruit's attractive color and the conspicuous display at the branch-tips, this tree appears to be distributed by birds which eat the fruit and spread the seeds. Perching birds, namely tanagers (Thraupidae), thrushes (Turdidae) and tyrant flycatchers (Tyrannidae), are most commonly seen to feed on the fruit. Some birds, such as the silver-beaked tanager (Ramphocelus carbo), prune off the seedcoat and eat it, discarding the seed, but most swallow the entire fruit. Species such as the swallow tanager (Tersina viridis) and the pale-breasted thrush (Turdus leucomelas), but perhaps most of all the sayaca tanager (Thraupis sayaca), appear to be particularly fond of them. Indeed, the sayaca tanager will defend richly fruiting A. glandulosa trees against similar-sized birds such as the blue dacnis (Dacnis cayana) or the red-eyed vireo (Vireo olivaceus). It may be that at least locally, T. sayaca is crucial for the tree's reproduction and survival.
This tree is often cut down for timber, but it is also useful as a honey plant. Also, its leaves contain compounds of medical interest. In folk medicine, Alchornea species are used to treat assorted skin diseases, diarrhea, inflammations, leprosy and rheuma.
Alchornea castaneifolia · Christmasbush · Manyflower Christmasbush · Native holly · Alchornea
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Alchornea glandulosa by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
