Lithospermum chinense Hooker & Arnott.

Herbs perennial, rarely annual, 15-30 cm tall. Stems numerous, slender, prostrate or ascending, base woody, densely appressed strigose. Leaves crowded; petiole 0.5-1 mm, or ± sessile; leaf blade linear-lanceolate, 3-10 × 1-1.5 mm, appressed strigose, margin usually revolute; midvein prominent abaxially, concave adaxially, without evident lateral veins. Cymes scorpioid, slender, 2-6 cm; bracts 1-3 mm. Flowers sparse, unilateral. Calyx 2-3 mm; lobes lanceolate, sparsely strigose. Corolla white, tubular or funnelform, 3-4 mm, widest at middle, ca. 1 mm wide; throat constricted, glandular, sparsely pubescent; limb 3.5-4 mm wide; lobes suborbicular, with folds above middle, densely hispid outside. Anthers ovate-lanceolate, 0.5-0.7 mm, apices thickened, coherent. Ovary globose, glabrous. Style short, evident; stigma conical, base ringlike, ca. 3 mm wide, apex short pubescent. Fruit compressed globose, ca. 2 mm in diam., densely strigose-hirtellous, divided at maturity into 4 1-seeded mericarps; mericarps trigonous-ovate, ca. 1 mm. Fl. and fr. Jul-Sep. 2n = 22, 26, 32, 64.

Sandy places, woods on coastal slopes. Fujian, Guangdong [Afghanistan, Bhutan, Cambodia, India, Kashmir, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Thailand, Vietnam; Africa, Australia].