滇拉拉藤 dian la la teng

Galium elegans Wallich var. angustifolium Cufodontis; G. elegans var. nemorosum Cufodontis.

Herbs, perennial, procumbent to scrambling or matted, up to 1 m, from slender rhizomes. Stems glabrescent and smooth to sparsely or moderately pilose to villous or retrorsely hispid, nodes more densely hairy, angles 4, usually thickened. Leaves in whorls of 4, subsessile; blade drying membranous, green, elliptic, ovate-lanceolate, or lanceolate, 5-50 × 3-15 mm, length/breadth index normally above 2.5, adaxially hispidulous to hirsute, abaxially glabrescent to densely pilose and usually glandular-punctate, base cuneate to obtuse, margins sparsely to densely pilose or antrorsely ciliate, apex acute to acuminate and often mucronulate; principal veins 3, palmate. Inflorescences terminal and in axils of uppermost leaves, paniculate, many flowered, 2-12 cm, diffusely branched; peduncles pilose to glabrescent; bracts inconspicuous, ligulate to ovate, 1.5-2.5 mm, often lacking upward; pedicels 2.5-7 mm. Flowers dioecious, polygamous, or ?hermaphroditic. Ovary obovoid, ca. 0.5 mm, densely appressed hairy. Corolla white, rotate, 1-1.5 mm in diam.; lobes 4, ovate, subacute. Mericarps ovoid, 1.5-2 mm, with dense, uncinate, stiff and spreading, basally white to apically brown trichomes ca. 0.8 mm. Fl. and fr. Jul-Nov.

● Forests, meadows on mountains, riversides, streamsides; 700-3300 m. Gansu, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hunan, Sichuan, Yunnan.

As noted in the protologue, Galium yunnanense is similar to G. elegans and comprises plants that previously have been included in a more broadly circumscribed G. elegans. In particular, the two varieties of G. elegans described by Cufodontis in 1940 and cited as synonyms above now key to G. yunnanense. In spite of its variability and occasional forms approaching G. bungei (see there), the specific separation of G. yunnanense from G. elegans by Chen (Acta Phytotax. Sin. 28: 301. 1990) seems well justified. It reduces the morphological variation within G. elegans and results in a much clearer circumscription of the two taxa.