Veronicastrum rhombifolium (Hand.-Mazz.) P. C. Tsoong

Rhizomes short. Stems often erect, ca. 50 cm tall, rarely trailing and rooting and ca. 1 m, angular, wingless, with multicellular hirsute hairs. Leaves alternate; petiole short; leaf blade often rhomboid, rarely rhomboid-ovate, 4-6 X 1.5-3 cm, papery, with multicellular hispid hairs, sometimes abaxially purple, margin serrate to crenate. Inflorescences axillary, sometimes surrounded by several leafy involucrate bracts and appearing terminal, 1-3 cm, horizontal or pendulous in fruit. Bracts and calyx lobes lanceolate to subulate, densely ciliate, slightly shorter or as long as corolla. Corolla purple, red, or white, 5-6 mm, straight; limb actinomorphic; lobes subulate-triangular, 1/3-1/2 of corolla length. Stamens conspicuously exserted; filaments hairy. Capsule ovoid, 3-4 mm. Seeds ovoid-globose, ca. 0.4 mm; seed coat reticulate. Fl. Aug-Sep.

Sichuan (Ya'an Diqu).

* Thickets; below 2800 m.

Botryopleuron rhombifolium Handel-Mazzetti, Oesterr. Bot. Z. 90: 124. 1941.