I strongly suspect that the plant in this photo is really Iresine herbstii 'Purple Lady' and not Alternanthera dentata.

Beefsteak Plant (Iresine diffusa f. herbstii 'Purple Lady')

https://www.panamseed.com/plan...
https://www.schneiderbv.nl/pro...
https://www.bustaniplantfarm.c...

@zuzu

Danita, does this apply to all three of jmorth's photos in this entry, and to the three plant combinations here?

What feature(s) are you comparing?

Zuzu,
All of his photos appear to be of the same plant. The younger plants are lighter and less textured due too lower light levels.

Tiffany,
I'm looking at the leaf shape and texture as well as the laxity of the stems. I've grown a few forms of Alternanthera dentata and it just doesn't look right for this species. It does look like the plant I've seen labeled as Iresine 'Purple Lady'.

Anyone ,
Some more confusion...
While doing a little more research, I found some sources that claim that the plant marketed as Iresine 'Purple Lady' is really a purple form of Cyathula prostrata.

If photos found on the internet are any indication, there seems to be a lot of confusion between and mislabeling of Cyathula, Alternanthera, and Iresine.

As usual, it looks like the flowers and their arrangement are the key to telling these similar-looking Amaranthaceae plants apart. Unfortunately, I haven't found a photo of 'Purple Lady' in flower.

If anyone has a photo of 'Purple Lady' in flower, that would be most helpful.

More investigation is needed, but I'm a bit cross-eyed from scrutinizing leaf photos. I'll take a break for now.

Hmm... the two pics of cuttings show an interesting difference but IDK if it's relevant. Greene's pic shows plants with green new leaves, red older leaves while JM's pic shows new red leaves, older green leaves.

But OTOH, Iresine pics usually show less distance between nodes than the plant in question. Alternantheras seem to have less variation in leaf size than the plant in question.

This pic seems to show very slight serration on the leaf edges.


I've had red Alternantheras before, but not any Iresine, which seems much less widely available gauging only by the plants I see mentioned on this site. Nobody mentions having Iresine, but I don't read every discussion and don't click into every specific forum, and of course, most people have a lot of plants of which I'm not aware.

Iresine blooms are very different from Alternanthera but none of JM's pic show blooms. Since JM is no longer with us, no further info is available about the pics.