深圳耳草 shen zhen er cao

Herbs, perennial, erect, to 40 cm tall; stems glabrous. Leaves subsessile; blade drying subleathery, adaxially dark green, abaxially pale green, elliptic, elliptic-oblong, or obovate, 8.5-15 × 5-9 cm, glabrous, base cuneate to rounded or cordulate, apex acute to obtuse; secondary veins 4-6 pairs but rather indistinct; stipules fused to leaf bases or very shortly around stem, triangular, 3-5 mm, shortly pubescent, ciliolate, acute. Inflorescence terminal, paniculate, many flowered, branched to several orders, glabrous, flushed with purple; peduncle 10-18 cm; axes flattened to 4-angled; bracts narrowly triangular, 0.2-3 mm; pedicels to 2 mm. Flowers sessile and/or pedicellate, distylous. Calyx glabrous; hypanthium portion obconic, ca. 1 mm; limb deeply lobed; lobes narrowly triangular to ovate, ca. 1.5 mm. Corolla white, tubular-urceolate, glabrous outside; tube ca. 3 mm, villous from middle into throat; lobes ovate to elliptic-triangular, 1.8-2.5 mm. Anthers included or exserted, 0.6-0.8 mm. Stigma included or exserted, ca. 1 mm. Fruit capsular, subglobose, ca. 2 mm, glabrous, weakly ribbed, septicidally dehiscent; seeds numerous, black, irregularly angled. Fl. Apr-Jun, fr. May-Oct.

● Understories of broad-leaved forests; 400-700 m. Guangdong (Shenzhen).

This species was treated by Chen (in T. L. Wu, Check List Hong Kong Pl. 265-266. 2002) under the name Hedyotis yangchunensis. The flower sizes in the figure in the protologue, according to the scale in that figure, do not precisely agree with the measurements given in the protologue description.