Circaea cordata Royle:
India (Asia)
Japan (Asia)
Pakistan (Asia)
Russian Federation (Asia)
South Korea (Asia)
China (Asia)

Note: This information is based on publications available through Tropicos and may not represent the entire distribution. Tropicos does not categorize distributions as native or non-native.

Anhui, Gansu, Guizhou, Hebei, Henan, Heilongjiang, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Jilin, Liaoning, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Xizang, Yunnan, Zhejiang [N India, Japan, Kashmir, Korea, Nepal, Pakistan, Russia (Far East)].

Himalaya (Kashmir to Nepal), Assam, China, Japan.

Distribution: Northern Pakistan and Kashmir; central Nepal to northeastern China and south-eastern USSR; Japan; Taiwan.

Plants 20-150 cm tall, pubescent, usually densely so, with long, soft, spreading hairs, soft, falcately recurved hairs, and capitate and clavately tipped glandular hairs. Rhizomes not tuberous. Leaves narrowly to broadly ovate, 4-13 × 2.3-11 cm, base broadly cuneate to broadly rounded or truncate or more commonly cordate, margin denticulate to subentire, apex shortly acuminate. Racemes simple or branched near base, 2-20 cm; flowering pedicels ± clustered and perpendicular to axis of raceme, pubescent, with a minute setaceous bracteole at base. Buds with few to many, long, straight or slightly curved, rarely hooked, hairs. Floral tube 0.6-1 mm. Sepals reflexed in flower, white or pale green, ovate to broadly so, 2-3.7 × 1.4-2 mm, apex broadly to narrowly rounded to obtuse. Petals reflexed, white, ovate to broadly so, or depressed-obovate to broadly obovate, 1-2.4 × 1.2-3.1 mm, apex obcordate, apical notch 1/2-2/3 length of petal, petal lobes broadly rounded. Stamens spreading, shorter than to ca. as long as style; nectary wholly within floral tube and inconspicuous. Fruiting pedicel and mature fruit 4.4-7 mm. Fruit 3-3.9 × 1.8-3.3 mm, locules 2, obliquely obovoid to lenticular, abaxially flattened, base obliquely rounded or truncate to pedicel, with low, corky thickenings along margins and between locules, without prominent sulci. Seed 1 per locule. Fl. Jun-Aug, fr. Jul-Sep. 2n = 22.

2600 m

Herbs, 2-15 dm tall, simple or branched above. Forming numerous subterranean non-tuberous rhizomes. Plants pubescent, often densely so, rarely the stem subglabrous, with villous, glandular and short recurved hairs, varying independently in density on different parts of the plant. Leaves ovate to broadly so, short acuminate, rounded to cordate at the base, margins denticulate to subentire, pubescent. Largest leaf blades 4-13 x 2.3-11 cm. Petioles 1-10 cm, pubescent. Pedicels 0.7-2 mm, pubescent, perpendicular to the axis of the raceme at anthesis. Bilocular ovary with soft, uncinate hairs. Floral tube 0.6-1 mm long. Sepals 2, 2-3.7 x 1.4-2 mm, pubescent abaxially, white or green, reflexed in flower. Petals 2, 1-2.4 x 1.2-3.1 mm, white, obcordate, the apical notch ½ or less the length of the petal. Stamens 2, spreading at anthesis, shorter than to equalling the style. Style erect, 3-5.5 mm. Mature fruit 3-3.9 x 1.8-3.3 mm, bilocular, 1 seed in each locule, very thickly lenticular to flattened pyriform, obliquely rounded to the pedicel, densely covered with stiff uncinate hairs. Fruiting pedicels reflexed. n = 11.

Circaea cardiophylla Makino; C. ×hybrida Handel-Mazzetti; C. kitagawae H. Hara.

Circaea mollis sensu Maximowicz, non Sieb. & Zucc., Prim. Fl. Amur. 105. 1859; Circaea cardiophylla Makino, Bot. Mag. Tokyo 20: 42. 1906; Circaea bondinieri H. LJv., Bull. Acad. Geogr. Bot. 22: 224. 1912; nom. provis.; Circaea x hybrida Hand.-Mazz., Symb. Sin. 7: 605. 1933; Circaea kitagawae Hara, J. Jap. Bot. 10: 595. 1935.

Well-drained soils in mixed deciduous, rarely boreal, forests; near sea level to 3500 m.

Dry mesic slopes and well drained soils in mixed forests. Plants from Pakistan and Kashmir are highly variable in degree of pubescence, the stem varying between subglabrous and villous, and in the shape of the leaf base which may be rounded to cordate. 1800-3000 m. elev. Fl. Per.: Jul.-Aug. Fr. Per.: Aug.-Sept.

"Circaea bodinieri" (H. Léveillé, Bull. Acad. Int. Geogr. Bot. 22: 224. 1912) belongs here but was a provisional name and was therefore not validly published (Vienna Code, Art. 34.1(b)).