苍梧蛇根草 cang wu she gen cao

Herbs, apparently ascending, to 30 cm tall; stems glabrous. Petiole 0.3-0.5(-1) cm, glabrous; leaf blade drying papery, adaxially leaden gray, abaxially straw-yellow with veins purple, ovate, lanceolate, or broadly ovate, 2-7.5 × 1-4 cm, glabrous on both surfaces, base rounded or obtuse, margins entire, apex obtuse; secondary veins 6 or 7 pairs; stipules caducous, not seen. Inflorescences many flowered, densely ferruginous villosulous; peduncle 1.5-2.5 cm; axes stout, helicoid; bracts filiform, 2.5-3 mm, ciliate or sparsely hispidulous. Flowers reportedly distylous, subsessile or on pedicels to 1 mm. Calyx with hypanthium obovoid, ca. 1.5 mm, 5-ribbed, densely pubescent; lobes lanceolate, ca. 1.5 mm, ciliate. Corolla white or pale yellow, slenderly funnelform, glabrous outside; tube ca. 10 mm, inside with white villous ring at middle and puberulent above; lobes sublanceolate, ca. 4 mm, dorsally with horn ca. 1 mm near apex. Immature capsules obcordate, ca. 1.5 × 4 mm, pubescent. Fl. Jul.

● Dense forests; 200-500 m. Guangxi (Cangwu).

In the protologue and FRPS (71(1): 145. 1999), H. S. Lo noted that this species is distylous but described only long-styled flowers, with the stigmas borne near the corolla throat and the anthers positioned below the middle of the corolla tube.