Chocolateweed

Melochia corchorifolia L. (Malvaceae, formerly Sterculiaceae) is an annual or short-lived perennial herb to subshrub pantropical in distribution, occurring as a common weed of rice fields, roadsides, and cultivated ground in Asia, Africa, and the Americas, and growing 0.3–1.2 m tall. Stems are slender, erect to ascending, often reddish, and clothed in fine stellate hairs mixed with longer simple hairs. Leaves are alternate, ovate to ovate-lanceolate, 2–8 cm long, with coarsely crenate to serrate margins, three to five basal veins, and a slightly cordate or rounded base; stipules are filiform. Small pink, pale-purple, or white five-petalled flowers are arranged in dense, terminal or leaf-opposed glomerules subtended by setaceous bracteoles; flowering is nearly year-round in the tropics. The fruit is a small five-valved subglobose capsule about 5 mm wide, pubescent, splitting at maturity to release 1–2 dark seeds per locule.