豹药藤 bao yao teng

Plants twining to 3 m. Branchlets gray-brown, terete, pubescent along 1 line, sometimes subglabrous. Leaves opposite; petiole 1-3 cm, sparsely puberulent, with a group of adaxial glands; leaf blade ovate or ovate-lanceolate, 5-8 × 2-4 cm, membranous, sparsely puberulent, base cordate, apex acuminate. Inflorescences umbel-like, 3-15 cm, to 25-flowered, puberulent; peduncle 4-10 cm; basal bracts linear-lanceolate, to 1.8 cm. Pedicel 1-2 cm. Sepals lanceolate, ca. 2 mm, sparsely pilose, ciliate. Corolla white or reddish, rotate; lobes oblong, ca. 4 mm, glabrous outside, whitish puberulent inside. Corona cupular, shorter than gynostegium, somewhat fleshy, margin very shallowly 5-lobed, interior with 5 ovate, fleshy appendages. Anther appendages rounded, incurved; pollinia oblong. Follicles lanceolate, ca. 11 × 1.2 cm. Seeds oblong-spatulate; coma ca. 2 cm. Fl. May-Jul, fr. Jul-Oct.

* Open woodland, thickets along valleys and roadsides; 2000-3500 m. Guizhou, Hunan, Sichuan, Yunnan.