pink snakeweed, porterweed

Description:

Flower spike of this shrub. Native to Mexico, the Caribbean, and South America, it has been introduced as an ornamental and has escaped in many other places. This species is a perennial herb or subshrub generally growing 10 to 20 centimeters tall, sometimes reaching half a meter. However this specimen is well over a meter tall. The hairy stems have oppositely arranged leaves. The leaf blades are leathery in texture and oblong or lance-shaped. They measure up to 12 centimeters long. The inflorescence is a narrow spike up to 60 centimeters long. The flowers come in many shades of red and pink.. There are other members of the genus colored blue and purple. This species sometimes escapes cultivation and becomes established in the wild. It can be weedy, growing in disturbed habitat such as pastures and roadsides. This plant is an introduced invasive species in Fiji, Hawaii, Queensland, and Singapore, and I might add, New Guinea. Perhaps it gets one of its common names from this http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/692... but I think it would be more apropos to call it "butterfly weed". The flowers are attractive to a variety of insects. See http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/690...

Habitat:

A planted ornamental in a semi-urban environment of houses, yards & gardens and patches of remnant forest. This is in the equatorial tropics of northern New Guinea.