连山耳草 lian shan er cao

Subshrubs, erect, to 80 cm tall; stems hollow, 4-angled to terete, smooth or sulcate, glabrous or usually sparsely hispidulous to puberulent just below stipules when young. Leaves subsessile to petiolate; petiole 3-5 mm, glabrous; blade drying papery, narrowly elliptic-oblong, narrowly elliptic, lanceolate, or ovate, 6-12 × 1.5-4 cm, glabrous or rarely scaberulous adaxially along midrib, base cuneate to acute and usually decurrent, apex acute to long acuminate; secondary veins 4 or 5 pairs; stipules fused to petiole bases, obovate, elliptic, or triangular, 3-6 mm, glabrous or puberulent when young, lacerate or with 7 to numerous narrow lobes or bristles 0.5-7 mm, these often glandular at apex. Inflorescence axillary, glomerulate, subglobose, 5-15 mm in diam., glabrous, sessile; bracts narrowly triangular to linear, 1-2 mm. Flowers sessile to subsessile, biology unknown. Calyx glabrous to puberulent; hypanthium portion cupulate to subglobose, 1-1.2 mm; limb lobed essentially to base; lobes lanceolate, narrowly triangular, narrowly ligulate, or linear, 1.5-3 mm, ciliolate. Corolla funnelform, outside glabrous; tube 1.8-2 mm, glabrous inside; lobes lanceolate to triangular, 1-2.5 mm. Anthers partially exserted. Stigmas exserted. Fruit indehiscent, ellipsoid to subglobose, 1.2-2 mm, glabrescent, with pedicels to 2 mm; seeds numerous, angled. Fl. Feb-Jul, fr. Jul-Dec.

● Sparse forests in valleys; 200-700 m. Guangdong (Liangshan).

The protologue described the flowers as shortly pedicellate, but on the specimens studied they are sessile at anthesis with the pedicels or stipes elongating as the fruit develop. W. C. Ko (in FRPS 71(1): 41. 1999) described the fruit as sometimes dehiscent across the top, but the protologue described them as indehiscent, which agrees with the specimens studied.