长叶蝴蝶草 guang ye hu die cao

Torenia glabra Osbeck.

Herbs, creeping to suberect, rooting from nodes. Branches numerous, long, slender. Petiole 2-8 mm; leaf blade triangular-ovate, narrowly ovate, or ovate-orbicular, 1.5-3.2 X 1-2 cm, glabrous or sparsely villous, base abruptly constricted and subtruncate to broadly cuneate, margin crenate and serrate. Flowers axillary and solitary or in fascicles. Pedicel 0.5-2 cm. Calyx 0.8-1.5 cm, 1.5-2 cm in fruit, 2-lipped, 5-winged; lips narrowly triangular, apex acuminate, further lobed into 5 small lobes; wings more than 1 mm wide, decurrent. Corolla purple-red to blue-red, 1.5-2.5 cm, exceeding calyx by 0.4-1 cm. Anterior stamens appendages linear, 1-2 mm. Capsule 1-1.3 cm. Seeds yellow, ca. 0.4 mm. Fl. and fr. Jun-Sep.

Mountain slopes, trailsides, shady places; below 1700 m. Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Japan, Vietnam].

We agree with Burtt (Rheedea 1: 7. 1991) in that the species treated as Torenia asiatica in Fl. Reipubl. Popularis Sin. 67(2): 164. 1979 may in fact be a Himalayan species, T. cordata (Griffith) Dutta, and the species that was treated as T. glabra is in fact T. asiatica.