版纳蛇根草 ban na she gen cao

Herbs, procumbent at base, ascending above, to 15 cm tall; stems glabrescent to densely villosulous. Leaves in subequal pairs; petiole 0.3-1 cm, puberulent to glabrescent; blade drying thinly papery, grayish, ovate, broadly ovate, elliptic, or sublanceolate, 1.5-4.5(-7) × 1-2.5 cm, adaxially glabrescent to sparsely strigillose, abaxially glabrous except pilosulous to puberulent along principal veins, base cuneate to obtuse, margins entire, apex acute; secondary veins 5-7 pairs; stipules persistent on uppermost nodes, triangular becoming strongly narrowed, 4-10 mm, glabrescent, long acuminate to aristate. Inflorescences cymose, several flowered, puberulent to hispidulous; peduncle 1-2.5(-4) cm; axes developed, helicoid; bracts few, narrowly triangular to linear, 0.5-2 mm. Flowers subsessile. Calyx puberulent to pilosulous; hypanthium ellipsoid to subglobose, ca. 1 mm; lobes narrowly triangular, 0.8-1 mm. Corolla white, tubular, outside puberulent; tube 4-5 mm, barbate in throat and glabrescent to puberulent inside tube; lobes triangular-ovate, ca. 1.5 mm. Capsules obcordate, 1.5-2.5 × 4-5 mm, puberulent to villosulous. Fl. May-Sep, fr. Jul-Oct.

Dense forests. Yunnan (Xishuangbanna) [Bangladesh, India (including Andaman Islands), Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand].

Ophiorrhiza hispidula was synonymized by Deb and Mondal (Bull. Bot. Surv. India 39(1-4): 131-133. 1997) under O. trichocarpa Blume, without explanation and reportedly without having seen Blume’s type; the name O. hispidula is provisionally used here pending further study.