菱叶鹿藿 ling ye lu huo

Herbs. Stems twining, slender, usually densely yellowish brown villous or sometimes pubescent. Leaves pinnately 3-foliolate; stipules small, lanceolate, 3-7 mm; petiole 3.5-8 cm, pubescent; stipels bristlelike, ca. 2 mm; petiolules 1-2 mm, pu­bescent; terminal leaflet ovate, ovate-lanceolate, broadly ellip­tic, or rhomboid-ovate, 5-9 × 2.5-5 cm, densely pubescent, abaxial surface with sessile glands, basal veins 3, base rounded, apex acuminate or caudate-acuminate; lateral leaflets smaller, obliquely ovate. Raceme axillary, unbranched, 7-13 cm, pubes­cent; bracts lanceolate, 5-10 mm, deciduous; peduncle 4-6 mm. Flowers sparse, 8-10 mm. Calyx 5-lobed; lobes triangular, lower one longer, densely pubescent. Corolla yellow, petals all stipitate; standard obovate-circular, base with inflexed auricles at 2 sides; wings narrowly oblong, with 2 auricles, one longer and inflexed; keels auriculate, longer than or subequal to stan­dard. Legume oblong or obovate, 1.2-2.2 × 0.8-1 cm, com­pressed, reddish purple when mature, pubescent, slightly con­stricted between seeds. Seeds 2, suborbicular, ca. 4 mm in diam. Fl. Jun-Jul, fr. Aug-Nov.

● Mountains, roadsides; 600-2100 m. Guangdong, Guangxi, Gui­zhou, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Shaanxi, Sichuan.

This plant is used medicinally.