大果水竹叶 da guo shui zhu ye

Herbs perennial. Roots fibrous, ca. 2.5 mm in diam., glabrous to densely tomentose. Rhizomes absent. Stem 1, erect, simple, to 1 m × 5 mm, subglabrous, striate. Basal leaves with blade long linear, 40--50 × 1--1.5 cm, glabrous. Cauline leaves 3--5; leaf sheaths 2--3 cm; proximal leaf blades slightly shorter than basal ones, distal blades becoming shorter, apical leaf bladeless. Cincinni ca. 6 cm; flowers dense, 20--30, only 1 or 2 fertile; peduncle 3--4 cm; involucral bracts sheathlike, 5--10 mm, membranous, glabrous; bracts ovate-orbicular, 1--1.5 cm × ca. 8 mm, membranous; pedicels straight, very short at anthesis, to 1 cm in fruit. Sepals elliptic, 1--1.2 cm, persistent. Petals purplish, elliptic. Fertile stamens 3, in a few flowers only anterior 2 fertile, posterior 1 depauperate or absent, often anterior 2 also depauperate; filaments densely white lanate; staminodes 3; antherodes 3-sect. Capsule ovoid, 1.5--1.7 cm, acute at apex. Seeds ca. 4 per valve, brown, rugose. Fl. Jun--Oct.

* Forests and open, wet places; near sea level to 1600 m. S Guangdong (Taishan Xian), S and W Yunnan (Xishuangbanna Dai Zu Zizhizhou, Zhenkang Xian).

The one or two capsules produced in each cincinnus emerge from nearly closed flowers. No open flowers have been observed by the present authors.