钝叶拉拉藤 dun ye la la teng

Galium asprellum Michaux var. tokyoense (Makino) Nakai; G. dahuricum Turczaninow ex Ledebour var. tokyoense (Makino) Cufodontis.

Herbs, perennial, erect or ascending but not clambering. Stems 30-70 cm tall, 4-angled, retrorsely aculeolate. Middle stem leaves in whorls of 5 or 6, subsessile; blade drying papery, subspatulate to obovate, (11-)17-35(-40) × (2.5-)3-7(-10) mm, mostly retrorsely aculeolate adaxially, along midrib abaxially and always along margins, base acute, apex rounded to emarginate, abruptly cuspidate; vein 1. Inflorescences congested, cymes terminal and in axils of uppermost leaves, several to many flowered, up to 4 cm; axes rough or glabrous and smooth; bracts few and small, only on lower inflorescence branches; pedicels 1-2 mm. Ovary obovoid, ca. 0.8 mm, glabrous. Corolla white, rotate, 1.3-3.5 mm in diam., glabrous; lobes acute to obtuse. Mericarps obovoid, ca. 2 mm, glabrous, smooth or tuberculate. Fl. and fr. Jun-Jul.

Forests, grasslands, meadows, riversides, open fields; 200-900 m. Hebei, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Nei Mongol, Shandong [Japan, Korea].

Cufodontis (Oesterr. Bot. Z. 89: 243-244. 1940) and W. C. Chen (in FRPS 71(2): 256. 1999) treated Galium tokyoense as a variety of G. dahuricum (see discussion under that species), but in the recent Flora of Japan (Yamazaki, Fl. Japan 3a: 239. 1993) it is again regarded as a separate species. In view of its erect (not clambering) growth, the abruptly acuminate leaf shape, the short and post-florally not elongated pedicels, and the always glabrous fruit this rank appears quite justified.