大叶茜草 da ye qian cao

Rubia chinensis Regel & Maack var. esquirolii (H. Léveillé) H. Léveillé; R. cordifolia Linnaeus var. maillardii (H. Léveillé & Vaniot) H. Léveillé; R. esquirolii H. Léveillé; R. leiocaulis Diels; R. maillardii H. Léveillé & Vaniot; R. schumanniana var. maillardii (H. Léveillé & Vaniot) Handel-Mazzetti.

Herbs, perennial, erect (or rarely ?climbing), with rhizomatous base; stems to 1 m, quadrangular to subterete, sometimes shallowly ribbed and/or sulcate, glabrous or puberulent near nodes, smooth or sometimes sparsely retrorsely aculeolate. Leaves in whorls of 4; petiole equal to unequal, 0.5-1.5(-3) cm; blade drying thickly papery to subleathery, broadly lanceolate, oblong-ovate, or ovate, 3-10 × 1.7-4 cm, length/breadth index 1.5-2.5, glabrous or usually hispidulous along principal veins and scaberulous on lamina, base obtuse to rounded or cordulate, margins thinly revolute and smooth to scaberulous, apex acuminate or subacute; principal veins 3 or 5, palmate, plane to impressed adaxially. Inflorescences thyrsoid-paniculate, cymes 5-12 cm, many flowered, terminal and from uppermost stem axils; peduncles scaberulous, puberulent, or glabrescent; bracteoles lanceolate, 3-4 mm, ciliate; pedicels 1-6 mm. Ovary ca. 1 mm, glabrous. Corolla white or greenish yellow, somewhat campanulate, 4-5 mm in diam., outside glabrous, inside puberulent to scaberulous, fused base 0.8-1 mm; lobes lanceolate, 2-2.2 mm, acute to acuminate. Mericarp berry black, 5-7 mm in diam. Fl. May-Jul, Nov, fr. Aug-Oct.

● Forests; 800-3000 m. Sichuan, Yunnan.

Rubia schumanniana (see H. S. Lo in FRPS 71(2): 301, t. 66, f. 1-7. 1999) belongs to R. ser. Chinenses, where it is close to R. chinensis and R. latipetala, but also to taxa of the R. mandersii group with sessile leaves. This plant is described as rarely climbing in H. S. Lo (loc. cit.: 299), but that may be due to misidentified specimens.