峨屏草属 e ping cao shu

Pan Jintang; Douglas E. Soltis

Herbs perennial, evergreen. Rhizomes creeping, slender. Leaves all basal, petiolate; stipules absent; leaf blade elliptic or broadly to narrowly ovate, leathery, margin serrate. Panicle or raceme with small bracts. Sepals (4 or)5(-7). Petals absent. Stamens (8-)10; anthers distinctive in comprising only 2 microsporangia. Carpels 2, connate proximally; ovary very shallowly subsuperior, appearing almost superior, proximally 2-loculed with axile placentation and distally 1-loculed with marginal placentation. Fruit a capsule. Seeds numerous, small, acute at both ends.

One species: China, Japan.

Tanakaea is closely related to the monotypic Leptarrhena R. Brown (from the Pacific Northwest of North America), which possesses the same distinctive anther morphology.

Lower Taxon

• Tanakaea radicans Franchet & Savatier