广州蛇根草 guang zhou she gen cao

Ophiorrhiza bodinieri H. Léveillé; O. japonica Blume var. leiocarpa Handel-Mazzetti; O. longzhouensis H. S. Lo; O. paniculiformis H. S. Lo; O. seguinii H. Léveillé; O. violaceoflammea H. Léveillé; O. yingtakensis Masamune.

Herbs or subshrubs, weak to erect, to 1.2 m tall, often brown to yellowish brown when dry; stems glabrous to densely puberulent or villosulous. Leaves in subequal pairs; petiole 1-4 cm, glabrous to densely puberulent or villosulous; blade drying papery to thickly papery, grayish brown or grayish green adaxially, pale green to yellowish brown abaxially, oblong-elliptic, elliptic, ovate, ovate-oblong, or lanceolate-oblong, 6-20 × 1.5-7 cm, glabrous throughout or sometimes puberulent abaxially, base obtuse to acute, margins entire, apex acute to acuminate; secondary veins 7-15(to 18, O. paniculiformis) pairs; stipules broadly triangular, 0.8-1.5 mm, puberulent to glabrous, caducous. Inflorescences paniculiform to corymbose, several to many flowered, densely puberulent to pilosulous; peduncles 1.5-7 cm; axes helicoid; bracts linear, 1-6 mm. Flowers distylous, subsessile or pedicels to 2 mm. Calyx densely puberulent; hypanthium subglobose to turbinate, 1-1.3 mm, smooth to weakly 5-ribbed; lobes triangular, 0.4-1 mm, sometimes with 1 gland in each sinus. Corolla white to pink, often drying yellow or pale red, subtubular to tubular-funnelform, slightly swollen at base, puberulent to glabrous outside, inside villous near middle of tube and scaly pubescent above middle and onto lobes; tube 9-12(-15) mm; lobes triangular, 1.8-3(-4) mm, dorsally with wing ca. 0.3 mm wide and often prolonged near apex, apex rostrate. Capsules mitriform, 3-4 × 6-9 mm, densely puberulent to subglabrous. Fl. winter and spring, fr. spring and summer.

● Ravines and watersides in forests; 100-1700 m. Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Sichuan (Pingshan), Yunnan.

Ophiorrhiza longzhouensis was synonymized formally by Duan and Lin (Acta Phytotax. Sin. 45: 870. 2007) with O. cantonensis; H. S. Lo’s separation of O. longzhouensis (Bull. Bot. Res., Harbin 10(2): 79. 1990) seems to have been based on its having relatively small leaves. Duan and Lin also synonymized O. paniculiformis with O. cantonensis. In FRPS (71(1): 165-166. 1999), H. S. Lo described this species as distylous with the corollas of both forms apparently similar and the reciprocally placed anthers and stigmas positioned near the middle of the corolla tube and in its throat, respectively; Lo also described the dried color of specimens of this species as ranging to reddish or red, but those specimens here belong to the more broadly circumscribed O. succirubra.