长叶茜草 chang ye qian cao

Herbs, perennial, rhizomatous; stems erect, to 1 m tall, glabrous, angled, retrorsely aculeolate. Leaves in whorls of 4, sessile or subsessile; blade drying papery, linear to lanceolate-oblong, 5-12 × 0.5-1.4 cm, glabrous, abaxially prickly on midrib and often on veins, base acute to cuneate, margins revolute and antrorsely aculeolate, apex acute to acuminate; lateral veins pinnate, 6-10 pairs. Inflorescences thyrsoid, with terminal and axillary, several- to many-flowered cymes, nearly as long as or shorter than subtending leaves; axes aculeolate; bracts linear, 2-5 mm; pedicels 2-6 mm. Ovary 1-1.2 mm in diam. Corolla pale yellow, rotate, fused basal part ca. 0.6 mm; lobes ovate, ca. 2 mm, abruptly contracted with arista ca. 0.5 mm. Mericarp berry black, 2.5-5 mm. Fl. May-Aug, fr. Jul-Sep.

Along rivers and among rocks; 1900-2100 m. Xinjiang [Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan; SW Asia (Iran)].

Rubia dolichophylla, well illustrated in H. S. Lo (in FRPS 71(2): 293, t. 62, f. 1-6. 1999), according to Pojarkova (Fl. URSS 23: 404-407. 1958) is one of the two species of R. ser. Dolichophyllae Pojarkova, both C Asiatic rhizome-forming herbs. Specimens of R. jesoensis (Miquel) Miyabe & Miyaki from Japan with a similar growth form might key out as R. dolichophylla but are readily separable by their stems with vegetative apex and exclusively axillary inflorescences with cymes borne along the lower stem portion and usually shorter than the supporting leaves. In R. dolichophylla the partial inflorescences are terminal and axillary. As already correctly shown by Pojarkova (loc. cit.), R. jesoensis appears related to R. tatarica (Treviranus) F. W. Schmidt from SE Russia and adjacent Siberia, and both belong to R. ser. Tataricae Pojarkova.