Merremia hederacea (Burm. fil.) Hall. fil.

Used medicinally for treating acute tonsillitis.

Herbs, twining or prostrate; axial parts often minutely tuberculate. Stems glabrous or sparsely hirsute, rooting at nodes. Petiole 0.5-5 cm, glabrous or pubescent; leaf blade cordate-ovate, 1.5-7.5 X 1-5 cm, subglabrous to sparsely puberulent, base cordate or broadly cordate, margin entire, irregularly crenate, or 3-lobed. Inflorescences (1-) or few to many flowered, umbelliform, cymose in fruit; peduncle (0.3-)0.8-5 cm, thicker than petiole; bracts early deciduous, narrowly obovate. Pedicel 2-5 mm. Sepals broadly obovate to spatulate or oblong, reflexed in fruit, unequal; outer 2 sepals 3.5-4 mm; inner 3 ca. 5 mm, glabrous, apex emarginate and distinctly mucronate, mucro directed outward. Corolla yellow, campanulate, 6-10 mm, outside glabrous, inside villous basally. Stamens ca. as long as corolla; filaments sparsely villous basally. Ovary globose, glabrous; stigma globose. Capsule depressed globose or broadly conical, 5-6 mm, reticulate (but not coarsely) wrinkled. Seeds trigonous-globose, 2.5-3.5 mm, puberulent to glabrous or woolly along angles and at hilum. 2n = 30*.

Old World tropics.

Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Jiangxi, Taiwan, Yunnan [?Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Japan (Ogasawara and Ryukyu Islands), Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, New Guinea, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam; Africa, N Australia, Pacific Islands]

200 m

Scrub, grassy roadsides in tropical areas; 100-800 m.

Evolvulus hederaceus N. L. Burman, Fl. Indica 77. t. 30, f. 2. 1768; Convolvulus acetosellifolius Desrousseaux; C. chryseides (Ker Gawler) Sprengel; C. dentatus Vahl; C. flavus Willdenow; C. lapathifolius Sprengel; Ipomoea acetosellifolia (Desrousseaux) Choisy; I. chryseides Ker Gawler; I. dentata (Vahl) Roemer & Schultes; I. subtriflora Zollinger & Moritzi; Lepistemon glaber Handel-Mazzetti; L. muricatum Spanoghe; Merremia chryseides (Ker Gawler) H. Hallier; M. convolvulacea Dennstedt ex H. Hallier.