Dobinea delavayi (Baill.) Baill.

The rhizome is used in traditional Chinese medicine.

Perennial herbs, 1-1.5 m tall; rhizome robust, elongate, terete, purplish brown; stem purple, striate, minutely pubescent distally. Leaves alternate; petiole decreasing in length from 1.5-6 cm basally to sessile toward shoot apices; leaf blade ovate to ovate-lanceolate, 6-11 × 3-9 cm, membranous, minutely pubescent adaxially, hirsute abaxially, base cordate, margin irregularly serrate, apex acuminate or acute, lateral veins 5-7 pairs, prominent abaxially. Male inflorescence thyrsoid, terminal or axillary, 8-15 cm, pubescent; floral subtending bract ca. 2 mm, pubescent; pedicel slender, 1-1.5 mm, pubescent; calyx campanulate, ca. 1.5 mm, 4(or 5)-dentate, glabrous to minutely pubescent; petals 4(or 5), greenish white, spatulate to clawed, ca. 1.8 mm; stamens 8(-10), ones opposite calyx lobes longer, filaments filiform, 1-2 mm, anthers ovate, ca. 0.4 mm; disk annular, purplish red; pistillode conical, ca. 1 mm, pubescent. Female inflorescence racemose, 7-14 cm, terminal or axillary, pubescent; floral subtending bract membranous, elliptic, ca. 1.5 × 1 mm, pubescent, margins ciliate, adnate to pedicel; calyx, petals, and staminodes lacking; disk annular; ovary subglobose, ca. 0.5 mm in diam., minutely pubescent. Fruit achenelike, 3-4 mm in diam., minutely pubescent; accrescent floral subtending bract elliptic to suborbicular, 2-2.5 cm in diam., entire or serrate, retic-ulately veined, sparsely pubescent to glabrescent, with ciliate margin.

SW Sichuan, C and NW Yunnan.

● Hill thickets and grasslands; 1100-2300 m.

Podoon delavayi Baillon, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Paris 1: 681. 1887.