镰叶茜草 lian ye qian cao

Herbs, perennial, presumably scandent vines; stems quadrangular, scabrous. Leaves opposite; petiole 3-4 cm, rather stout, retrorsely aculeolate; blade drying greenish, thickly leathery, falcate-lanceolate, 11-15 cm, both surfaces scaberulous, usually aculeolate along principal veins, base rounded or subcordate, margin revolute and aculeolate, apex acuminate; principal veins 5, palmate, impressed above, with higher order reticulate veins immersed; stipules caducous, unknown. Inflorescences axillary, with many-flowered cymes. Flowers unknown. Mericarp berries dark orange-yellow when dry, 3.5-4 mm in diam., binary or solitary, densely villous with pubescence drying ferruginous. Fr. Oct.

● Wet lands in forests; ca. 1100 m. Yunnan (Lianghe).

Authentic material of Rubia falciformis has not been available, but H. S. Lo (in FRPS 71(2): 295, t. 63, f. 9-11. 1999) presented a good drawing. With the exception of the strongly hairy fruit and the deciduous (and unknown) stipules, its description corresponds to R. siamensis, also known from Yunnan, and thus belongs to its group within R. sect. Oligoneura.