English: False ironwort; Knobweed.
Region: south America, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela; C. America, Panama to Mexico; Caribbean, Trinidad to Cuba and southeast N. America
Habitat: humid tropics; pantropical; settled areas, open waste places, fallow rice paddies, degraded farmland, along roads and clearings, in lowland rain forest; elevations up to 750 metres.
Content: alkaloids, camphor, cyanogenic glycosides; lignan, pyrone; ursolic acid (3β-hydroxyurs-12-en-28-oic) (UA) (4), a pentacyclic triterpene; glavonol glucoside; kaempferol, glucose, rhamnose; non-terpenoid compounds, oct-1-en-3-ol, linalool; monoterpenes, borneol, piperitone oxide; hydroquinone, a topoisomerase II poison; flavonol glycosides; aglycone, 5, 7, 4′-trime-thylkaempferol; kaempferol-3-rhamnoglucoside.
Use: medicine; perfumery.
BotanyHerb; aromatic; annual to perennial plant; 50 - 200cm tall.
Stems: become more or less woody.
Seeds: germination requires exposure to bright, blue light.
Dispersion: flower heads spread by water; seeds by animals, humans, vehicles, machinery, fur, clothing, mud.
Literaturehttp://tropical.theferns.info/viewtropical.php?id=Hyptis+capitata
http://medicinalplantsinsingapore.wikifoundry.com/page/Hyptis+capitata
http://www.stuartxchange.org/Botonesan.html