对叶车叶草 dui ye che ye cao

Subshrubs, perennial, originating from a woody rootstock. Stems often ± woody at base, up to 40 cm tall, erect, weakly 4-angled, glabrous to puberulent. Leaves opposite, subsessile; blade drying stiffly papery, linear to linear-lanceolate, 3-6(-15) × 0.5-1.5(-3) mm, glabrous throughout or ± hairy, base and apex acute; secondary veins not evident; stipules 2-4 per leaf pair, reduced and never more than 0.3 mm. Inflorescences terminal and axillary, dichasial, branched to 1-4 orders, glabrous to puberulent; peduncles 1-10(-30) mm; bracts linear to narrowly elliptic (i.e., leaflike), 1-4 mm; pedicels 0-3 mm. Corolla pink to purple, funnelform, glabrous to sparsely pilose outside; tube ca. 2 mm; lobes 4, ovate-oblong, ca. 1.5 mm. Ovary subglobose to narrowly ellipsoid, 0.5-1 mm, glabrous to densely pilosulous. Mericarps ovoid, 1.5-2.5 mm, glabrous to densely pilosulous. Fl. Jun-Jul, fr. Jul-Aug.

Gravel on mountain slopes; ca. 3700 m. Xizang (Zanda) [Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan].

Asperula oppositifolia is a polymorphic species with several subspecies and belongs to the very variable A. sect. Oppositifoliae (Ehrendorfer et al., Fl. Iranica 176: 131-142. 2005). As we have not seen material from China, the data presented here are mostly taken from FRPS (71(2): 214. 1999) and do not allow an exact determination. Outside of China, populations of A. oppositifolia are found at elevations down to 1350 Their leaves are narrow and short relative to the internodes and sometimes deciduous. Thus, the plants appear to consist only of photosynthetic stems with small terminal groups of flowers.