47. Lerchea Linnaeus, Mant. Pl. 2: 155, 256. 1771.
多轮草属 duo lun cao shu
Authors: Tao Chen & Charlotte M. Taylor
Codaria Linnaeus ex Kuntze.
Subshrubs or perennial herbs, unarmed, sometimes unbranched. Raphides present. Leaves opposite, often grouped at stem apices, perhaps without domatia; stipules caducous or persistent, interpetiolar, triangular or generally ligulate to obovate. Inflorescences terminal or pseudo-axillary, cymose, corymbiform, or racemiform with axes scorpioid, spiciform, or bearing small heads, several to many flowered, pedunculate, bracteate or bracts reduced. Flowers pedicellate to sessile, bisexual, distylous. Calyx limb shallowly to deeply 5-lobed, inside with well-developed colleters. Corolla white or yellowish green, tubular or funnelform, inside with pubescent ring in throat; lobes 5, often cucullate, valvate in bud. Stamens 5, inserted near or above middle of corolla tube, exserted or included; filaments developed; anthers dorsifixed, sometimes pubescent at one or both ends. Ovary 2-celled, ovules numerous in each locule on peltate axile placentas; stigma 2-lobed, stout, sometimes scabrous, exserted or included. Fruit baccate, fleshy except with bony endocarp, subglobose, with calyx limb persistent; seeds numerous, brown, small, angled.
About ten species: SE Asia; two species (one endemic) in China.
This genus was reviewed in detail in Sumatra and Java by Axelius (Blumea 32: 91-114. 1987). She noted among other observations that the plants are quite infrequently encountered in the field. The genus was apparently first reported from China by H. S. Lo (Bull. Bot. Res., Harbin 18: 275-283. 1998), who transferred one described species of Ophiorrhiza and Xanthophytum into Lerchea.
