臭鸡矢藤 chou ji shi teng

Paederia cruddasiana subsp. microcarpa (Kurz) Puff; P. foetida Linnaeus var. microcarpa Kurz.

Vines, to 10 m; stems moderately to sparsely hirtellous or strigillose to glabrous, drying yellowish brown. Leaves opposite; petiole 1-3 cm, hirtellous or strigillose to glabrescent; blade drying membranous, ovate, lanceolate, or narrowly lanceolate, 5-16 × 2-10.5 cm, adaxially glabrous or puberulent on principal veins, abaxially sparsely hirtellous to glabrous on blade and sparsely to moderately puberulent or hirtellous along veins, base rounded to truncate or cordate, margins flat, apex acute to weakly acuminate; secondary veins 4-8 pairs; stipules generally persistent, ovate-lanceolate to broadly triangular, 2.5-6 mm, acute or bifid. Inflorescences axillary and/or terminal, paniculate, pyramidal, 6-50 cm, branched to 3-5 orders, hirtellous to glabrescent, pedunculate; bracts triangular to linear, 0.5-2 mm; pedicels to 2 mm. Flowers subsessile to pedicellate in cymules. Calyx puberulent to glabrescent; hypanthium portion ellipsoid, ca. 1 mm; limb lobed nearly to base; lobes triangular, 0.4-2 mm. Corolla purplish blue, lilac, or pink, funnelform, outside densely puberulent to tomentulose; tube 6-16 × 1.5-4.5 mm, without slits; lobes triangular, 2-4 mm. Fruit broadly ellipsoid to ovoid, somewhat laterally compressed, 6-11 × 4.5-8 mm, glabrescent, drying yellowish gray; pyrenes ovate to elliptic, somewhat flattened, marginally winged. Fl. May-Jun, fr. Nov-Dec.

Open forests; 100-1900 m. Yunnan [Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam].

This species has long been incorrectly treated by several previous authors as Paederia foetida, including by W. C. Ko (in FRPS 71(2): 112-113. 1999); see comments above in the genus discussion. Puff (Opera Bot. Belg. 3: 251-252. 1991) recognized two subspecies of P. cruddasiana, distinguished by fruit and pyrene size and form, and included some Chinese plants in subsp. cruddasiana and others in subsp. microcarpa. The distribution of these subspecies is apparently complementary (Puff, loc. cit.: 252, f. 11), with the plants in the SE range of this species falling into subsp. microcarpa; however, the measurements that separate these taxa are overlapping generalizations, based on study of ten collections of subsp. cruddasiana and four collections of subsp. microcarpa from China, with several collections of each subspecies apparently found in the same relatively small region (e.g., Mengla Exped. 34288, subsp. microcarpa, and Li Y. H. 317, subsp. cruddasiana, both reported as 21°30’N 101°25’E; this latter collection apparently not mapped in his f. 11). Given the large morphological variation documented within other species of Paederia, the few specimens studied by Puff, and the geographic overlap, these varieties are provisionally not recognized here pending further study.