水虎尾 shui hu wei

Mentha stellata Loureiro, Fl. Cochinch. 2: 361. 1790; Dysophylla benthamiana Hance; D. benthamiana var. hainanensis C. Y. Wu & Hsuan; D. benthamiana var. intermedia C. Y. Wu & Hsuan; D. esquirolii H. Léveillé; D. japonica Miquel; D. stellata var. hainanensis (C. Y. Wu & Hsuan) C. Y. Wu & H. W. Li; D. stellata var. intermedia (C. Y. Wu & Hsuan) C. Y. Wu & H. W. Li; D. verticillata (Roxburgh) Bentham; Eusteralis pumila Rafinesque-Schmaltz; M. verticillata Roxburgh; Pogostemon benthamianus Kuntze; P. verticillatus Miquel.

Herbs annual. Stems erect, 15-40 cm, base to 1 cm in diam., glabrous, nodes sometimes gray villous, lower internodes short. Leaves in whorls of 4-8, linear to lanceolate, 2-7 cm × 1.5-4(-7.5) mm, glabrous, abaxially gray, base attenuate, margin remotely serrulate or entire, revolute or flat, apex acute. Spikes 0.5-7(-9) cm × 4-6.5(-8) mm, continuous, compact; bracts lanceolate, conspicuously longer than calyx. Calyx densely gray tomentose outside, ca. 12 × 1 mm; fruiting calyx to 1.8 mm. Corolla purple-red, 1.8-2 mm, lobes subequal. Nutlets brown, obovoid. Fl. and fr. year round.

Rice paddies, wet areas along streams; 300-1500 m. Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Hunan, Jiangxi, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam; Australia].