翅茎半边莲组 chi jing ban bian lian zu

Lobelia subsect. Delostemon F. E. Wimmer, Ann. Naturhist. Mus. Wien 56: 359. 1948.

Plants perennial or annual, 6-60 cm tall. Stems slender, herbaceous or sometimes subshrubby, prostrate, decumbent, ascending, or erect, simple to branched, sometimes stoloniferous, caespitose, or radicant. Leaves sessile or petiolate. Flowers solitary in axils of upper leaves or these much reduced, creating a terminal sometimes secund raceme; pedicels bibracteolate at or below middle. Corolla bilabiate, typically some shade of blue or purple, less often pink or white, 5-20(-32) mm; lobes strongly dimorphic, spreading. Anthers bearded with tufts of filiform hairs at apex on all 5 (those on ventral pair sometimes longer). Fruit a capsule. Seeds ovoid to oblong, trigonous or lenticular; testa striate.

Forty-four species: S Hemisphere, north to Senegal, Ethiopia, India, Japan, Colombia, and Hispaniola; three species in China.

Lower Taxa

• Lobelia alsinoides Lamarck
• Lobelia terminalis C. B. Clarke
• Lobelia zeylanica Linnaeus