Sida yunnanensis S. Y. Hu

It occurs in the upper punjab, Hazara (N.W.F.P.), Pakistan, and Azad Kashmir.

The original author suggested that Sida yunnanensis was related to S. spinosa Linnaeus, but it is distinguished by the broadly elliptic or obovate leaf blades (ovate-lanceolate in S. spinosa), shorter petioles (3-7 mm as opposed to 2-20 mm in S. spinosa), and the absence of the short nodal spines characteristic of S. spinosa. Paul (Fl. India 3: 290. 1993) included S. yunnanensis within S. rhombifolia var. rhombifolia, while Abedin (Fl. W. Pakistan 130: 81. 1979) accepted it and extended it to include material from India, Kashmir, Myanmar, and Pakistan.

Perennial herb or undershrub, stellate pubescent, 0.5-1.5 m tall. Leaves very variable in shape and size; stipule 5-8 mm long, filiform; petiole 4-10 mm long; blade narrow to broad elliptic, oblong-elliptic, rhomboid or obovate, 1-6.5 cm long, 0.6-5 cm broad, lower surface cinereous, pubescent, upper surface green, glabrescent, serrate or crenate, apex acute to obtuse, base cuneate or obtuse. Flowers axillary, mostly in fascicles in terminal branches; pedicel 4-6 mm long, in fruit c. 1 cm, articulate in the middle or slightly above. Calyx 4-6 mm long, pubescent outside, glabrous within; sepals fused slightly above the middle; lobes triangular, acuminate, carinate at base. Corolla c. 1 cm across, yellow; petals slightly longer than sepals, c. 4 mm broad, obovate, margins sparsely hairy at base. Staminal tube c. 3 mm long, sparsely hairy. Carpels 5. Fruit depressed, globose, 4-5 mm across, densely pubescent on the upper half; mericarps 5, whitish, papery, disintegrated at the base, 2 mm long, with a pair of c. 0.7 mm long, convergent, apical awns. Seeds dark brown to black, 1.5 mm long, glabrous.

Subshrubs erect, to 1 m tall. Branchlets stellate puberulent. Stipule filiform, ca. 5 mm; petiole 3-7 mm, stellate; leaf blade obovate, elliptic, or orbicular, 1-4 × 0.5-3 cm, abaxially stellate tomentose, adaxially sparsely minutely stellate puberulent to glabrous, base obtuse, margin dentate, apex obtuse to acute. Flowers subterminal, ± apically congested, mostly on reduced axillary shoots. Pedicel 3-4 mm at anthesis, to 1.5 cm in fruit, stellate puberulent, apically articulate. Calyx ca. 4 mm, minutely stellate puberulent, lobes triangular, acute to slightly acuminate. Corolla yellow, ca. 1 cm in diam.; petals obovate-lanceolate, ca. 8 mm. Filament tube usually hirsute. Mericarps 5-7, with vertical grooves, 3-4 mm, densely stellate, usually apically 2-awned. Fl. autumn-winter.

Distribution: Burma, China, India and Pakistan.

● Scrub on slopes, grassy roadsides. Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Sichuan, Yunnan.

Sida yunnanensis var. longistyla J. L. Liu; S. yunnanensis var. viridicaulis J. L. Liu; S. yunnanensis var. xichangensis J. L. Liu.