金黄蛇根草 jin huang she gen cao

Herbs, ascending or sometimes weak at base, to 30(-45) cm tall; stems terete to compressed, usually striate, densely golden yellow pubescent. Leaves in subequal pairs; petiole 0.5-1.5 cm, densely golden yellow pubescent; blade drying papery, yellow or grayish yellow, ovate, lanceolate, or elliptic-oblong, 1.5-6 × 0.8-2 cm, adaxially sparsely strigose or glabrescent to pubescent, abaxially golden yellow pubescent to glabrescent at least on principal veins, base cuneate to acute, apex acute or shortly acuminate; secondary veins 7-10 pairs; stipules persistent on upper nodes, deeply 2-parted, lobes triangular, 3-8 mm, filiform or acuminate at apex. Inflorescences cymose to somewhat congested-cymose, many flowered, golden yellow pubescent; peduncle 5-15 mm; axes short to well developed, helicoid; bracts none or reduced and caducous. Flowers distylous, subsessile. Calyx densely golden yellow hispidulous or -pilosulous; hypanthium turbinate, 1.2-1.5 mm, 5-ribbed; lobes subtriangular, 0.5-0.7 mm. Corolla pale yellow, white, or sometimes reddish, tubular to often somewhat inflated, hispidulous outside; tube 3-4 mm, inside with a white villous ring in upper half; lobes subovate, 1-1.3 mm, apex incurved-rostrate, dorsally smooth. Capsules obcordate, ca. 2 × 4-5.5 mm, hirtellous to pilosulous. Fl. Jul.

● Forests; ca. 1800 m. Yunnan (Xishuangbanna).

H. S. Lo (loc. cit.: 34-37) recognized two forms of this species, f. aureolina and f. qiongyaensis H. S. Lo; the latter form was formally synonymized with Ophiorrhiza pumila by Duan and Lin (Acta Phytotax. Sin. 45: 878. 2007), who are followed here. Lo described the long-styled and short-styled forms as similar in their corollas but differing in the anthers (situated below the middle of the corolla tube in the long-styled form vs. in the throat in the short-styled form); the stigmas appear to be reciprocal in position with the anthers.