卵叶耳草 luan ye er cao

Oldenlandia ovata (Thunberg ex Maximowicz) Kuntze.

Herbs or subshrubs, erect, perennial, to 90 cm tall; stems 4-angled, glabrous. Leaves petiolate; petiole ca. 5 mm, glabrous; blade drying papery, ovate, 2.5-7 × 1.5-3.5 cm, glabrous, base acute, margins revolute, apex acute; secondary veins 3 or 4 pairs but indistinct; stipules triangular to broadly triangular, ca. 2 mm, marginally glandular-serrulate. Inflorescences terminal and sometimes also in axils of uppermost leaves, fascicled, several flowered, sessile or pedunculate; peduncles 0.9-2 cm; bracts triangular, ca. 1.5 mm; pedicels 0.5-1 mm. Flowers subsessile to pedicellate. Calyx with hypanthium portion subglobose, 1-1.5 mm in diam.; lobes lanceolate, ca. 4 mm. Corolla purplish red, villosulous in throat and onto lobes; tube 3-4.5 mm. Anthers included. Stigmas included. Fruit capsular, subglobose, 3-4 mm in diam., septicidally then loculicidally dehiscent; seeds 3 or 4, 4-angled, smooth. Fl. and fr. Apr-Jul.

● On humid soil rich in humus in forests. Hainan (Sanya).

This species has been reported from Vietnam by the Kew Rubiaceae checklist (Govaerts et al., World Checkl. Rubiaceae; http://www. kew.org/wcsp/rubiaceae/; accessed on May 2007); it was not included in the Vietnam checklist.