菲律宾耳草 fei lü bin er cao

Hedyotis congesta R. Brown ex G. Don; H. laevigata (Candolle) Miquel; H. philippensis (Willdenow ex Sprengel) Merrill ex C. B. Robinson; Metabolos laevigatus Candolle; Oldenlandia congesta (R. Brown ex G. Don) Kuntze (1891), not Baker (1877); O. prostrata (Blume) Kuntze; Spermacoce philippensis Willdenow ex Sprengel.

Herbs or subshrubs, erect to perhaps clambering, to 60 cm tall; stems 4-angled, flattened, or terete, sometimes sulcate, glabrous. Leaves petiolate; petiole 3-6 mm, glabrous; blade drying papery or membranous, ovate, lanceolate, ovate-lanceolate, or elliptic, 3.2-12 × 1.2-4.5 cm, glabrous, base cuneate, obtuse, or rounded then often decurrent, apex acute or acuminate; secondary veins 4-6 pairs but usually not visible; stipules shortly fused to petiole bases or around stem, broadly triangular, 2-4 mm, glabrous or pilosulous to hirtellous, acute or usually acuminate to aristate, entire or glandular-serrulate. Inflorescence axillary and/or terminal, capitate or glomerulate, 5-10 mm in diam., 10-18-flowered, glabrous, sessile or subsessile; bracts lanceolate, triangular, or linear, 0.5-4 mm. Flowers sessile to subsessile, floral biology unknown. Calyx glabrous; hypanthium portion obconic to campanulate, 0.8-1 mm; limb lobed essentially to base; lobes triangular, 1-1.2 mm. Corolla white to violet, funnelform; tube 2-3 mm; lobes lanceolate, 1-1.2 mm. Fruit indehiscent or tardily septicidal, ellipsoid-oblong to subglobose, 2-4 × 1.5-3 mm, with pedicels to 2 mm; seeds 10-12, black, foveolate. Fl. Apr-Jun.

Thickets; 200-400 m. Hainan (Xinglong) [India, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam].

Plants from the Philippines have fruit that are markedly ellipsoid, but the Chinese plants treated under this name have subglobose fruit that are quite distinctively different in shape.

This species has long been treated under the name Hedyotis philippensis, based on the conclusion that Blume’s valid publication of the name H. prostrata was in 1826 while the basionym of H. philippensis was published in 1825. However, Bakhuizen f. (Fl. Java 2: 284-288. 1965) noted that Blume’s name was actually published in an earlier work and, thus, is the oldest name for this species. Dutta and Deb (Taxon. Rev. Hedyotis. 2004) treated this species under the name H. congesta, without explanation.