Chinese Raspwort

Chinese plants belong to Gonocarpus chinensis subsp. chinensis, whereas subsp. verrucosus (Maiden & Betche) Orchard (Haloragis verrucosa Maiden & Betche) is found along the coastal regions of New South Wales and Queensland. The fruit of the latter taxon have papillae (never calluses) on and between the ribs and are always globular.

Herbs perennial, erect or ascending, 10-60 cm tall. Stem weak, 4-ribbed, scabrous with sparse appressed hairs. Leaves decussate, becoming alternate near inflorescence, sessile or subsessile; leaf blade linear-lanceolate, oblong, or linear, 10-28 × 1-9 mm, surfaces scabrous, base rounded, margin thickened, serrate with 15-30 small teeth, apex obtuse. Inflorescence an indeterminate spike, branched; bracts leaflike, lanceolate to narrowly ovate, 0.5-1.5 × 0.3-0.5 mm, adaxially pubescent, margin thickened, entire; bracteoles brown, linear to lanceolate, 0.2-0.5 mm, membranous. Flowers erecto-patent, 4-merous; pedicel ca. 0.2 mm. Sepals green, triangular, 0.6-0.9 × 0.4-0.5 mm, glabrous, with a small, median-basal callus, margin thickened. Petals yellow, sometimes reddish, hooded, very shortly clawed, 1-1.5 × 0.3-0.5 mm, sparsely hirsute on keel. Stamens 8, ca. 1 mm. Ovary 4-loculed; styles clavate, 0.1-0.3 mm; stigmas reddish, capitate, fimbriate. Fruit silver-gray to dark gray, broadly ellipsoid, 0.7-1 × 0.8-1 mm, weakly 4-angled or 8-ribbed, with up to 2 oblique calluses between ribs, scabrous, with short, curved, appressed hairs confined almost entirely to ribs. Seed 1 per fruit. Fl. Mar-Oct, fr. May-Nov.

Open grasslands, waste land, river banks, deforested slopes; 100-800 m, to 1500 m in SW China. Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Sichuan, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Indonesia, Malaysia (Sabah), Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam; SW Asia (W Iran), N and W Australia, Pacific islands (Caroline Islands, introduced in Hawaii)].

Gaura chinensis Loureiro, Fl. Cochinch. 1: 225. 1790; Gonocarpus scaber K. D. Koenig; G. tetragynus Labillardière; Haloragis chinensis (Loureiro) Merrill; H. chinensis var. yapensis Tuyama; H. scabra (K. D. Koenig) Bentham; H. scabra var. elongata Schindler; H. scabra var. novaguineensis Valeton; H. tetragyna (Labillardière) J. D. Hooker; H. tetra gyna var. micrantha Bentham.

Gonocarpus chinensis is an Australian shrub in the watermilfoil family Haloragaceae native to eastern Australia.