圆锥花远志 yuan zhui hua yuan zhi

Herbs annual, erect, 10-50 cm tall. Stems terete, mostly much branched, glandular pubescent. Leaves alternate, subsessile, lowest 4 or 5 often in pseudowhorls; leaf blade lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, 5-20 × 1-4 mm, 1-veined, lateral veins absent, base attenuate, margin entire, apex acute. Racemes terminal or opposite to leaves, 2-15 cm. Pedicel 0.5-1 mm; basal bracteoles caducous, lanceolate, apex acute. Sepals 5; outer sepals 3, ± elliptic, apex obtuse; inner sepals 2, purple, petaloid, elliptic-oblong, ca. 2 mm, 3-veined. Petals 3, white or violet; lateral petals narrowly ovate-lanceolate, attenuate to apex; keel apex with multifid appendages. Stamens 8, forming an open staminal sheath glabrous inside and split at top into 8 very short free filaments. Ovary obovoid to nearly globose; style straight, 1.5-2 × as long as ovary, apex expanded into an oblique broad cup, upper portion of which ends in tuft of hair; stigma at base of cup. Capsule oblong, ca. 2 mm, not winged, apex notched, glabrous. Seeds black, oblong, densely white pubescent; strophiole small, with 2 membranous appendages.

Low elevations. Guangdong, Taiwan (introduced and naturalized) [widely distributed in the tropics].