少花蛇根草 shao hua she gen cao

Herbs, weak to erect, to 30 cm tall; stems pilosulous to villosulous. Leaves in subequal pairs; petiole 0.5-2 cm, hirtellous; blade drying thinly papery, adaxially dark purple, abaxially purple or grayish, ovate to elliptic-ovate, 1.5-5.5 × 0.8-2.5 cm, adaxially strigose or sericeous, abaxially pubescent on principal veins, base obtuse to subrounded or sometimes shortly decurrent, apex obtuse; secondary veins 5-9 pairs; stipules persistent, narrowly triangular or usually 2-lobed, 3-6 mm, lobes narrowly triangular to linear, glabrescent. Inflorescence congested-cymose, several flowered, pubescent; peduncle 1-3 cm; bracts linear, 3-6.5 mm, persistent. Flowers distylous, subsessile. Calyx puberulent to pilosulous or glabrescent; hypanthium obovoid, ca. 1.5 mm; lobes sublanceolate, 0.8-1 mm. Corolla white, tubular, outside hispid to glabrescent; tube 8-9 mm, barbate in throat and upper part; lobes ovate, ca. 1 mm. Capsules obcordate, ca. 2 × 4.5 mm, puberulent to hirtellous or glabrescent. Fl. and fr. May-Oct.

Dense forests; 600-1600 m. Yunnan (Xishuangbanna) [NE India].

Deb and Mondal (Bull. Bot. Surv. India 39(1-4): 89-93. 1997) recognized two varieties, the pubescent var. pauciflora with corollas 6-9 mm and the glabrous var. glabra Deb and Mondal with corollas 10-12 mm; the plants treated as Ophiorrhiza pauciflora by H. S. Lo (in FRPS 71(1): 127. 1999) generally fall within var. pauciflora but have corollas that are intermediate in size and thus cannot be conclusively included in either of the Indian varieties (suggesting that the Indian varieties may not ultimately be separable).