大桥蛇根草 da qiao she gen cao

Herbs, apparently ascending, to 30 cm tall; stems mealy puberulent. Leaves in subequal pairs; petiole 1-5 cm; blade drying papery, dark brown, ovate to broadly ovate, 2.5-5.5 × 1.5-3.3 cm, glabrous, base obtuse or subrounded, margins entire, apex acute; secondary veins 7 or 8 pairs; stipules caducous, not seen. Inflorescence somewhat congested-cymose, many flowered; peduncle ca. 3 cm; axes up to 1 cm, helicoid; bracteoles filiform, fleshy, 2.5-3 mm. Flowers distylous, subsessile or pedicels to 2 mm. Calyx pilosulous; hypanthium subturbinate, ca. 1.4 mm, shallowly 5-ribbed; lobes triangular to narrowly lanceolate, ca. 0.7 mm, with 1 gland in each sinus. Corolla white, tubular-funnelform, outside pilosulous, inside with white villous ring at middle and scaly pilose from middle onto lobes; tubes 11-12 mm; lobes ovate-triangular, ca. 3 mm, dorsally narrowly winged and with very short horn. Capsules not seen. Fl. Apr.

● Forests. Guangdong (Ruyuan).

The original description (H. S. Lo, Bull. Bot. Res., Harbin 10(2): 52-53. 1990, not validly published) described the flowers as distylous with the short-styled flowers as unknown; the putative long-styled flowers were described as having the anthers positioned just below the middle of the corolla tube and the stigmas in the throat. In FRPS (71(1): 153. 1999), H. S. Lo gave the plant height as 20 cm, but the original description said 30 cm. Much of the information on pubescence details here is taken from the figure in the original description.