美丽马蓝 mei li ma lan

Baphicacanthus multibractealatus Hung T. Chang & H. Zhu; Goldfussia speciosa (Blume) Bremekamp.

Subshrubs or herbs, to 1.2 m tall, perennial, anisophyllous. Stems ascending, apically pubescent. Petiole 0.5-2 cm, hirsute; leaf blade of smaller pair ovate to suborbicular and ca. 3 × 1.6 cm and of larger pair ovate and 12.5-16.5 × 6-8 cm, both surfaces hirsute, adaxially with numerous prominent linear cystoliths, secondary veins 7-9 on each side of midvein, base oblique and decurrent onto petiole, margin irregularly crenate-dentate, apex acute to caudate. Inflorescences axillary, heads, narrowly ovoid, 1-2.5 × 1-1.5 cm, borne on simple or 3-furcate branches; peduncle 1-3 cm, simple or branched and sometimes with a sterile bract at branching point, hirsute; sterile bracts resembling small leaves; floral bracts lanceolate, 1.2-2.3 × 0.7-1 cm, overtopping capitula, abaxially brownish pubescent with gland-tipped trichomes, margin entire and ciliate, apex acuminate and falcate; bracteoles oblanceolate, 7-13 × ca. 2 mm, abaxially pilose, margin ciliate. Calyx outside hirsute, 5-lobed almost to base; lobes oblanceolate, 7-15 × ca. 0.2 mm, subequal, margin ciliate, apex acute. Corolla purplish blue, 3.5-5 cm, ventricose, outside gland-tipped pilose, inside glabrous; tube basally cylindric and ca. 2.5 mm wide for ca. 1 cm then gradually widened to ca. 1.5 cm at mouth; lobes ca. 5 × 4 mm, apex rounded. Stamens 4, included; filaments glabrous, shorter pair 1-2 mm and nodding, longer pair 4-6 mm; anther thecae spherical, ca. 1.2 mm in diam., incurved; pollen type 3. Ovary comose; style ca. 3.7 cm; stigma unequally 2-lobed. Capsule fusiform, 1.5-1.8 × ca. 0.4 cm, apically with a few gland-tipped trichomes, 4-seeded. Seeds brown, ovate in outline, ca. 3 × 2.5 mm, appressed pilose. Fl. Sep-Dec, fr. Jan.

Forests; 500-1800 m. Yunnan [Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam].

This species intergrades with Strobilanthes capitata, from which it differs in little more than the narrower heads overtopped by the floral bracts and may not be distinct.

Strobilanthes speciosa has been misidentified as Goldfussia glomerata Nees by C. C. Hu (FRPS 70: 164. 2002).