Hemigraphis ciliata S.Moore

Moore, S. le M. (1920) Journal of Botany, British and Foreign 58: 191

Decumbent herb. Stems ca. prostrate, rooting at the nodes, 4-angled and grooved, hairy.

Petioles 5-15 mm long, hairy.Leaf blade elliptic, 5.5-10 x 2-3.5 cm; attenuate at base; acuminate to acute at apex; lateral veins 5-7 on each side of the midrib and forming loops inside the blade; glabrous with numerous embedded cigar-shaped glands visible on the upper surface of the leaf blade, glands visible with a lens.Margin shallowly crenate.

Inflorescence a terminal spike. Bracts leaf-like with short hars. Calyx lobes linear, 7-8 x 0.8-0.9 mm, with short hairs. Corolla white, veined purple, 13-15 mm long, tube and throat 10-11 mm long. Stamens with upper filaments1.5-1.8 mm long, hairy, lower filaments 0.8-0.9 mm long with short hairs. Ovary hairy in upper half, 4 ovules per cell. Seeds 1-4 per capsule, with seed-bearing hooks. Seed clothed in hairs, orbicular, flattened, ca.1.5-2 mm diam.

Fruit a cigar-shaped capsule, 8-9 x 2.5 mm, hairy in upper half, enclosed in the persistent calyx.

Cotyledons orbicular, radicle straight, about 0.5 mm long.

Occurs in CYP and CEQ. Also known from New Guinea and SE Asia. Grows in undergrowth of gallery rainforest also in semi evergreen and notophyll vine forest on alluvial soil.

Hemigraphis royenii Bremek , Nova Guinea 8: 132 (1957). Type: van Royen 4770, between Wam River and Lake Wam, alt. 60 m, Merauke District.