粗毛耳草 cu mao er cao

Hedyotis speciosa Handel-Mazzetti; H. wulsinii Merrill; Oldenlandia mellii (Tutcher) Chun.

Herbs, erect, perennial, to 90 cm tall; stems subterete to 4-angled, densely to sparsely hirtellous or pilosulous to sometimes glabrescent. Leaves sessile; blade drying papery, ovate-lanceolate, elliptic, lanceolate, or narrowly elliptic, 3.5-9.5 × 0.5-3.5 cm, adaxially sparsely to densely puberulent or hispidulous or often glabrous on lamina, abaxially sparsely to densely hirtellous, pilosulous, or hispidulous to glabrous; secondary veins 3 or 4 pairs; stipules fused to petiole bases, triangular to broadly triangular, 1-3 mm, densely puberulent, hirtellous, or hispidulous to glabrescent, marginally entire to glandular-serrate, acuminate or with 3-5 narrowly triangular to linear lobes or bristles 0.2-2 mm. Inflorescences terminal and usually also in axils of uppermost leaves, cymose to compound-cymose, paniculate to often racemiform, 3-25 cm, several to many flowered, densely to sparsely pilosulous, puberulent, or hispidulous to glabrous; peduncle 0.5-7 cm; bracts narrowly elliptic to narrowly lanceolate, 1-5 mm; pedicels 1-5 mm. Flowers pedicellate, apparently monomorphic. Calyx glabrous or sparsely to densely hirtellous to pilosulous; hypanthium portion cupulate to obconic or elliptic, ca. 1 mm; limb 1-1.5 mm, lobed for 2/3-4/5; lobes ovate-lanceolate to narrowly triangular. Corolla presumably white, funnelform, outside glabrous to densely hirtellous or pilosulous, inside densely villosulous or tomentulose in throat and onto lobes; tube 2-2.5 mm; lobes lanceolate to spatulate, 4-4.5 mm, acute. Anthers shortly exserted, ca. 1.2 mm. Stigma long exserted, ca. 0.2 mm. Fruit capsular, ellipsoid to subglobose, 2-3 mm, sparsely to densely hirtellous, pilosulous, or glabrous, crustaceous to thickly papery or cartilaginous, septicidally then loculicidally dehiscent; seeds several, black, angled. Fl. Jun-Nov, fr. Aug-Nov.

● Jungles or thickets on mountains or mountain slopes; 400-1100 m. Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hunan, Jiangxi.

This species is very similar to Hedyotis cantoniensis, H. matthewii, and H. tenuipes, and these are here separated somewhat differently from the circumscriptions of FRPS (71(1): 48, 51, 52, 54. 1999). Hedyotis matthewii may be only a glabrous form of H. mellii, although they do appear to be distinct.