穗序木蓝 sui xu mu lan

Herbs, perennial, prostrate or weakly ascending, 20-100 cm. Branchlets rooting at nodes; young branches dark red, cylindric, with sparse appressed white medifixed symmetrically 2-branched trichomes, glabrescent. Stipules lanceolate to nar­rowly triangular, 4-6 × 1.5-2 mm, membranous, glabrescent, apex caudate. Leaves 2.5-7.5 cm, 5-9-foliolate; petiole and rachis with sparse appressed medifixed trichomes, glabrescent; petiole 0.5-2 mm; rachis 1-2.2 cm; stipels spiculate, ca. 0.5 mm; petiolules 1-1.5 mm; leaflet blades alternate, obovate, nar­rowly obovate, or obovate-oblong, 5-22 × 3-10 mm, abax­ially with appressed medifixed trichomes, adaxially glabrous, secondary veins not visible, base cuneate, apex rounded and with a ca. 0.2 mm mucro. Racemes 5-16 cm; peduncle to 1.8 cm; bracts ovate to ovate-lanceolate, 2.5-3 × ca. 1 mm, cadu­cous, apex caudate. Peduncles, bracts, pedicels, and calyces with sparse appressed medifixed trichomes. Pedicel 0.5-1 mm, deflexed in fruit. Calyx tube 0.5-1 mm; teeth narrowly trian­gular, 2-2.5 mm. Corolla red; standard broadly ovate, 4-5.5 × 3-4 mm, outside with appressed medifixed trichomes, glabres­cent when flowering; wings 3-4.5 × 1.5-2 mm, glabrous, mar­gin ciliate along upper auricle; keel 4-5.5 × 2-2.5 mm, outside with medifixed trichomes in bud, glabrescent when flowering, margin ciliate, lateral spur ca. 1 mm. Stamens 4-5 mm; anthers ovoid, glabrous. Ovary with minute appressed trichomes, with 8 or 9 ovules. Legume linear, 4-sided in cross section, 1-2.5 cm × 2-2.5 mm, with appressed medifixed trichomes, apex with ca. 2 mm beak; endocarp not blotched. Seeds 7-9 per legume, dark brown, globose, 1.5-2 × 1-1.2 mm. Fl. Sep-Nov, fr. Nov-Jan.

Open ground, moist sunny trailsides; 800-1100 m. Guangdong, Guangxi (cultivated), Taiwan, Yunnan [Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Japan (Ryukyu Islands), Laos, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam].

Indigofera hendecaphylla has been misidentified as the African and SW Asian species I. spicata Forsskål by Y. Y. Fang and C. Z. Zheng (FRPS 40: 316. 1994), T. C. Huang and H. Ohashi (Fl. Taiwan, ed. 2, 3: 305. 1993), C. Z. Zheng (C. T. Cheng) and Y. Y. Fang (Higher Pl. China 7: 145. 2001), and X. Y. Zhu et al. (Legumes China, 439. 2007). See Du Puy et al. (Kew Bull. 48: 727-733. 1993).