45. Leptomischus Drake, Bull. Mus. Hist. Nat. (Paris). 1: 117. 1895.
报春茜属 bao chun qian shu
Authors: Tao Chen & Charlotte M. Taylor
Indopolysolenia Bennet; Polysolen Rauschert, nom. illeg. superfl.; Polysolenia J. D. Hooker (1873), not Ehrenberg ex Kützing (1849) [Fungi].
Perennial herbs or subshrubs, unarmed, presumably rather succulent. Raphides present. Leaves opposite, sometimes crowded or rosulate, perhaps without domatia, with margins sometimes crisped and/or reportedly serrulate; stipules persistent to deciduous, interpetiolar or shortly united around stem, triangular to suborbicular (Leptomischus funingensis), often well developed and veined, entire or 2- or 3-lobed (L. wallichii), glabrous or glabrescent adaxially. Inflorescences terminal and apparently sometimes pseudoaxillary, capitate to congested-cymose or umbelliform, several to many flowered, subsessile to pedunculate, bracteate with bracts often well developed to involucral. Flowers sessile to pedicellate, bisexual, distylous and sometimes markedly dimorphic. Calyx limb 5-lobed. Corolla white or yellow, funnelform, salverform, or sometimes inflated, inside pubescent in upper part or most of tube; lobes 5, valvate in bud. Stamens 5, inserted below middle of corolla tube in long-styled flowers, inserted in corolla throat in short-styled flowers, included or partially exserted; filaments usually short; anthers basifixed or perhaps dorsifixed near base. Ovary 2-celled, ovules numerous in each cell borne on stipitate placentas apparently near base of septum; stigma 2-lobed, included or exserted. Fruit capsular, subglobose, dehiscent through apical portion or operculum inside calyx limb, perhaps papery, with septum reportedly mostly disintegrating leaving 1 incomplete cell; seeds numerous, small, reticulate or areolate.
Seven species: S China, NE India, Myanmar, Vietnam; five species (three endemic) in China.
Leptomischus seems to be similar to Keenania and Mouretia; all of these genera are rather poorly known. Several authors (e.g., Deb & Rout, Kew Bull. 45(2): 339-341. 1990; H. S. Lo in FRPS 71(1): 184-189. 1999) have reported marked floral dimorphism in species of Leptomischus.
