Bredia Blume, Mus. Bot. 1: 25. 1849, emend. R.C. Zhou & Ying Liu

Type.

Bredia hirsuta Blume, Mus. Bot. 1(2): 25. f. 4. 1849.

Description.

Shrubs, shrublets or herbs, erect, ascending or creeping. Stems terete or more or less 4-sided, sparsely to densely puberulous, rarely glabrescent. Leaves petiolate; leaf blade ovate, cordate, oblong, elliptic, ovate-orbicular, rarely lanceolate, papery, rarely submembranous, sparsely to densely puberulous or strigose, secondary veins 2-5 on each side of midvein, margin serrulate or entire. Inflorescences terminal, umbellate, cymes or cymose panicles. Flowers 4-merous. Hypanthium funnel shaped to campanulate. Calyx lobes conspicuous, linear-lanceolate to triangular. Petals pink or purplish red, ovate to oblong, more or less oblique, apex acute or acuminate. Stamens 8, unequal or subequal; filaments filiform; anthers dimorphic or isomorphic, subulate to oblong-linear, gibbose, tuberculate or spurred at base, rarely unappendaged abaxially. Ovary half inferior, crowned, ovoid, 4-celled. Style filiform; stigma apiculate. Capsule turbinate to cup-shaped, more or less 4-sided, crown persistent and enlarged, enclosing an inverted frustum-shaped depression at capsule apex. Seed numerous, minute, cuneate, densely granulate. (Figs 3, 7, 5 E–H, M–P, 8 E–H, M–P)

Distribution.

Twenty-one species: 15 in central and southern mainland China (Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Sichuan, Chongqing, Yunnan, Zhejiang), one in north Vietnam, five in Taiwan and one extending to the Ryukyu islands (Fig. 13).