拟金草 ni jin cao

Hedyotis lancea Thunberg ex Maximowicz; Oldenlandia consanguinea (Hance) Kuntze; O. lancea (Thunberg ex Maximowicz) Kuntze.

Herbs or subshrubs, erect, perennial, to 40 cm tall; stems terete, flattened, or weakly 4-angled, smooth to sulcate, glabrous. Leaves subsessile to petiolate, sometimes appearing verticillate due to axillary groups of reduced leaves on unexpanded lateral stems; petiole to 6 mm, glabrous; blade drying stiffly papery to leathery, lanceolate, ovate, elliptic, lanceolate-elliptic, or elliptic-oblong, 1.5-12 × 0.4-4 cm, glabrous, base acute to obtuse and usually decurrent, margins plane to thinly revolute, apex acute to usually acuminate; secondary veins 2-4 pairs but mostly indistinct; stipules fused around stem, ovate to broadly triangular, 2-5.5 mm, glabrous, marginally glandular-serrulate, acute to acuminate or shortly aristate. Inflorescences terminal and in axils of uppermost leaves, compound-cymose, paniculate, 3-15 cm, many flowered, glabrous, pedunculate; peduncle 1-7 cm; axes strictly dichotomous then often spiciform (due to development of only 1 lateral axis, leaving 1 or 2 flowers at node), or sometimes scorpioid (due to development of alternating axes); bracts triangular to elliptic, 0.8-5 mm or those subtending principal axes sometimes leaflike; pedicels to 1 mm. Flowers sessile to shortly pedicellate, apparently distylous. Calyx glabrous; hypanthium portion obconic, 0.8-1 mm; limb deeply lobed; lobes lanceolate to triangular, 0.8-1.2 mm. Corolla white, salverform, outside glabrous; tube 1.5-2.5 mm, inside sparsely villosulous; lobes lanceolate, 1.5-2.5 mm. Anthers included or exserted, ca. 0.8 mm. Stigma apparently included or exserted, ca. 0.3 mm. Fruit capsular, ellipsoid, ca. 2 × 2 mm, glabrous, woody, flattened to rounded on top, septicidally then loculicidally dehiscent; seeds numerous, blackish brown, angled. Fl. and fr. Jun-Nov.

● Grasslands, ditch sides; 400-1000 m. Fujian, Guangdong, Hainan, Zhejiang.

In the description here a distinction is made between the inflorescence axes and the pedicels; measurements in other descriptions sometimes include inflorescence axes that bear only a developed flower together with an undeveloped bud on an apparently indeterminate segment as pedicels and, thus, are correspondingly longer.