东亚耳草 dong ya er cao

Exallage ulmifolia (Wallich) Bremekamp; Hedyotis ulmifolia Wallich; Oldenlandia lineata (Roxburgh) Kuntze.

Herbs or subshrubs, annual or perennial, clambering or perhaps erect, to 35 cm tall; stems 4-angled, flattened, or subterete, sometimes sulcate, densely villous, hirsute, or pilose with trichomes drying yellowed. Leaves sessile or petiolate; petiole to 3 mm, hirsute or villous; blade drying papery, ovate-lanceolate, elliptic-lanceolate, or elliptic, (0.5-)1.5-3.5(-4) × 1.2-4.5 cm, adaxially sparsely to moderately strigillose to strigose on blade and densely pilosulous on principal veins, abaxially glabrescent on blade and moderately to densely strigose to pilose on principal veins, base obtuse to rounded, apex acute to shortly acuminate; secondary veins 3 or 4 pairs; stipules interpetiolar or fused to petiole bases, broadly triangular to subtruncate, 2-4 mm, densely villous to pilose, with 3 or 5 linear lobes or bristles 2-7 mm. Inflorescences axillary, congested-cymose to fasciculate or subglomerulate, subglobose, 5-15 mm in diam., several flowered, subsessile to pedunculate; peduncles several in each axil, 0.5-4 mm; bracts linear, 1-2 mm; pedicels to 2 mm. Flowers subsessile to pedicellate, biology unknown. Calyx hirtellous; hypanthium portion subcupulate to obconic, ca. 0.8 mm; limb deeply (but not completely) lobed; lobes triangular, 1-1.2 mm. Corolla white, salverform to rotate, outside glabrous except lobes pilose at tip; tube 1-1.5 mm, pubescent in throat; lobes triangular, 1-1.5 mm. Anthers 0.5-0.8 mm, exserted. Stigma 0.3-0.5 mm. Fruit indehiscent, subglobose to turbinate, 1-1.2 × 1.5-2 mm, hirtellous; seeds 36-40, 0.8-1 mm. Fl. Jun, perhaps Nov, fr. Nov.

Broad-leaved forests at high elevations; [100-1100 m in India]. Yunnan (Menghai) [Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Nepal].

The names Hedyotis ulmifolia and H. lineata appear to have been published simultaneously; the basis for choosing the name H. lineata is not explained in the references consulted but seems to be consistent usage (e.g., Fl. Bhutan 2(2): 761. 1999; Dutta & Deb, Taxon. Rev. Hedyotis. 2004).

We have seen no corollas, anthers, or stigmas from China; the description of these parts here is from Dutta and Deb (loc. cit.). W. C. Ko (in FRPS 71(1): 34. 1999) described the corolla tube as 3 × as long as the lobes, which does not agree with the information given by any other authors for this species. Also the elevational range of "at high elevations" given for this species by Ko contrasts markedly with information on the specimens seen and the low to middle elevations noted by other authors.