赫尔曼耳草 he er man er cao

Herbs, annual or perennial, erect to procumbent, to 15(-20) cm tall; stems subterete to angled or sulcate, glabrous. Leaves subsessile to petiolate; petiole to 2 mm; blade drying papery, ovate, lanceolate, or elliptic, 1-2.5(-5) × 0.5-1.5 cm, adaxially sparsely or moderately hispidulous to glabrescent, abaxially glabrous, base acute to obtuse, margins scaberulous, apex obtuse to acute; secondary veins 2 or 3 pairs but mostly indistinct; stipules fused to petiole bases, broadly triangular, 0.5-1.5 mm, hirtellous or puberulent to glabrescent, rounded to truncate, sometimes apiculate or with 2 or 3 bristles to 1 mm. Inflorescences terminal and in axils of uppermost leaves, fasciculate to loosely dichasial, few flowered, glabrous; peduncles and/or pedicels 2-15 cm; bracts reduced or triangular to setiform, to 1 mm. Flowers pedicellate or pedunculate, floral biology unknown. Calyx glabrous; hypanthium obconic, ca. 1 mm; limb lobed nearly to base; lobes ovate, ca. 1.2 mm, sometimes with evident venation, ciliolate. Corolla white sometimes tinged with pink, salverform, outside glabrous; tube ca. 1.5 mm, inside glabrous; lobes ovate, ca. 0.5 mm. Anthers and stigmas not seen. Fruit capsular, oblate-cupuliform, 2.5-3 × 3.5-4 mm, glabrous, smooth, loculicidally dehiscent across top then sometimes septicidal, with beak to 1 mm, with calyx lobes becoming elliptic to ovate, to 2 mm; seeds numerous, subglobose.

Mountains; ca. 1600 m. Yunnan [India, Sri Lanka].

The description here is based on Chinese material. Dutta and Deb (Taxon. Rev. Hedyotis. 2004) described the corolla of Hedyotis hermanniana in India as having tubes 3-4 mm and lobes 1.5-2 mm, although their figure shows a corolla with a tube slightly over 1 mm and the lobes ca. 2 mm.