皱子白花菜 zhou zi bai hua cai

Cleome ciliata Schumacher & Thonning.

Herbs, annual or rarely perennial, 30-100 cm tall. Stems branched, often with decumbent branches, glabrous or glabrescent to slightly scabrous but sometimes glandular pubescent. Stipules ca. 0.5 mm, scalelike or absent. Petiole 0.5-3.5 cm, proximally winged; leaflets 3; leaflet blades oblanceolate to rhomboid-elliptic, 1-3.5 × 0.5-1.7 cm, abaxially with curved trichomes on veins especially when young, adaxially glabrous, margins entire or serrulate-ciliate, apex acute, obtuse, or sometimes acuminate. Inflorescences terminal and axillary, 2-4 cm but 8-15 cm in fruit, 3-6-flowered; bracts leaflike, 3-foliate, 1-3.5 cm. Pedicel 1.1-2.1 cm but 1.8-3 cm in fruit. Sepals yellow, narrowly lanceolate, 2.5-4 × 0.2-0.3 mm, ± persistent, glabrous, margin ciliate. Petals white or speckled with purple, oblong to narrowly ovate, 7-10 × 1.5-2.3 mm; central 2 petals outside with a yellow transverse band. Filaments yellow, 5-7 mm; anthers purplish brown, 1-2 mm. Pistil 2-3 mm, glabrous; style 0.5-1.4 mm. Fruit with a 4-12 mm gynophore; capsule 40-70 × 3-4 mm, striate. Seeds 4-25 per capsule, reddish brown to black with white funicular aril, 1-1.5 mm, slender, striately verrucose. Fl. and fr. Jun-Sep. 2n = 20, 30.

Between paddy fields, streamsides, wetlands; near sea level to 200 m. Introduced and naturalized in Anhui, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan (Qiongshan), Taiwan, and W Yunnan (Luxi) [native to tropical Africa; naturalized in tropical America, Asia, and Australia].

This species is an invasive weed throughout most lowland wet tropical areas of Asia and Australia.