55. Mouretia Pitard in Lecomte, Fl. Indo-Chine. 3: 71. 1922.
杜丽草属 du li cao shu
Authors: Tao Chen & Charlotte M. Taylor
Perennial herbs or subshrubs, unarmed; stems sometimes becoming corky. Raphides present. Leaves opposite, sometimes anisophyllous, apparently without domatia; stipules persistent, interpetiolar, triangular to leaflike, often reflexed, acute to bifid. Inflorescences terminal, pseudoaxillary [or sometimes axillary, Mouretia vietnamensis Tange], capitate, subcapitate, or congested-cymose, several to many flowered, subsessile to pedunculate, bracteate. Flowers sessile to pedicellate, bisexual, distylous, sometimes fused by their ovaries. Calyx limb 5-lobed. Corolla white, yellow, or pink, tubular-funnelform to salverform, inside densely pubescent at middle and sometimes through throat; lobes 5, valvate in bud. Stamens 5, inserted near middle of corolla tube, included with anthers positioned near middle of corolla tube in long-styled form, exserted in short-styled form; filaments short or reduced in long-styled form, well developed in short-styled form; anthers dorsifixed near base. Ovary 2-celled, ovules numerous in each cell on axile placentas; disk puberulent; stigma 2-lobed, exserted in long-styled form, included in short-styled form. Fruit capsular, obconic to subglobose, dehiscent through apical portion or operculum inside persistent calyx limb, thinly to thickly papery; seeds numerous, small, angled.
Five species: E and SE Asia; one species in China.
This genus was revised by Tange (Nordic J. Bot. 17: 123-132. 1997), who recognized four species from Indochina but documented each with few specimens. Mouretia was studied in China by H. S. Lo (Bull. Bot. Res., Harbin 6(4): 48. 1986; Bull. Bot. Res., Harbin 18(3): 282. 1998), who apparently did not have communication with Tange: they independently described and named the same Chinese species, which are here synonymized (Tange’s publication has priority). The known species of Mouretia are distylous (Tange, loc. cit.; Puff et al., Rubiaceae of Thailand, 182. 2005). The breeding biology of the Chinese plants has not been reported by Chinese authors and is not evident from the material available to us but is presumably similar. Lo (in FRPS 71(1): 183. 1999) described the stipules as caducous, but they are persistent on the specimens seen and according to Tange.
