60. Neanotis W. H. Lewis, Ann. Missouri Bot. Gard. 53: 34. 1966.
新耳草属 xin er cao shu
Authors: Tao Chen & Charlotte M. Taylor
Herbs, annual or perennial, unarmed, often procumbent, often fetid when bruised, often fleshy, often drying blackened. Raphides present. Leaves opposite, without domatia; stipules persistent, interpetiolar and usually fused to petioles, truncate to triangular, laciniate to setose, sometimes glandular. Inflorescences axillary and/or terminal and sometimes displaced to pseudoaxillary, laxly cymose to capitate, few to many flowered, pedunculate to sessile, bracteate or bracts reduced. Flowers sessile to pedicellate, bisexual, at least sometimes distylous. Calyx limb deeply 4(or 5)-lobed. Corolla white, pink, or purple, funnelform to tubular, inside glabrous or villous in tube and/or throat; lobes 4(or 5), valvate in bud. Stamens 4(or 5), inserted usually in corolla throat, exserted or included; filaments short to developed; anthers dorsifixed near base. Ovary 2[-4]-celled, ovules several or rarely numerous or 1 in each cell on ascending axile placenta attached to septum near base; stigmas 2(-4), linear, included or exserted. Fruit capsular or rarely indehiscent, subglobose, turbinate, obconic, ovoid, or dicoccous, often laterally compressed, loculicidally dehiscent through apical portion, this portion plane or sometimes shortly raised into a beak, leathery to membranous, with calyx limb persistent; seeds few to numerous, small, disciform to plano-convex, rounded or rarely winged, scabrous foveolate; endosperm corneous; embryo clavate.
About 30 species: mainly in tropical Asia and Australia; eight species (two endemic) in China.
When proposing this generic name, Lewis showed that Anotis Candolle, as then circumscribed, included a broadly heterogeneous group of both New and Old World species that shared only a herbaceous habit and fruit with few peltate seeds under an illegitimate name. Accordingly he transferred the Asian species to Neanotis, without descriptions or keys, although this name has sometimes been overlooked. The fruit and seed morphology of several species was studied by Terrell and Robinson (J. Bot. Res. Inst. Texas 1(1): 373-384. 2007), including N. calycina and N. hirsuta of our flora. The description here of the placenta attachment position and the seeds of other species are all from W. C. Ko (in FRPS 71(1): 77-86. 1999); no other authors seen have described these features. The floral biology of Neanotis has not been described in the literature but the flowers appear to be distylous in at least some Chinese species.
The treatment here differs from that of W. C. Ko (loc. cit.) in the circumscription of several species. In particular, the application of the name Neanotis hirsuta is applied more narrowly, and many specimens previously included there are here treated as N. kwangtungensis, including one variety named in N. hirsuta.
Some plants from Sichuan that are shorter than 40 cm tall with leaf blades narrowly ovate and 1.5-2.5 × 0.7-1 cm have been called Neanotis ingrata f. parvifolia How ex W. C. Ko (J. S. China Agric. Univ. 16(4): 46. 1995); no specimens of this have been seen, and no more information was provided in the protologue. Due to the limited available information and the narrowed circumscription of species here, the identity of this name is not clear, and it is neither accepted nor synonymized here.
