林氏茜草 lin shi qian cao

Herbs, climbing or scrambling, to 1.5 m; stems subterete, glabrous, smooth to sparsely aculeolate. Leaves in whorls of 4; petiole 1-4.5 cm, glabrous; blade drying thinly papery, lanceolate, lanceolate-oblong, or oblong-ovate, 2-7.5 × 0.5-3 cm, length/breadth index 2.5-4, glabrous, upper side sparsely scaberulous, base truncate, rounded, or cordulate, margin flat to thinly revolute and smooth, apex acute to acuminate; principal veins 3(or 5), palmate. Inflorescences thyrsoid, paniculate, with terminal and axillary, several- to many-flowered cymes; axes glabrous and smooth; bracteoles lanceolate to narrowly elliptic, 1-3 mm; pedicels 1-4 mm. Ovary 0.3-0.5 mm, smooth. Corolla white, rotate, ca. 2.5 mm in diam., with lobes usually reflexed, outside glabrous, fused base ca. 0.5 mm; lobes 5, triangular, 1-1.2 mm, acute. Mericarp berry black, 4-7 mm in diam. Fl. May-Aug, fr. Apr, Jul.

● Margins of evergreen forests; 500-3000 m. Taiwan.

Rubia linii was accepted in the Fl. Taiwan (ed. 2, 4: 324. 1998), where neither R. cordifolia nor R. wallichiana figure. In FRPS (71(2): 316. 1999) it was treated in a comment under R. wallichiana, as a possible misidentification of that species. Rubia linii is an obvious member of the R. cordifolia complex (= R. cordifolia agg., see additional comments under that species). More detailed studies will have to demonstrate its doubtful specific status; it is obviously very close to R. cordifolia and R. wallichiana.