Japanese name: ミズタビラコ(水田平子) Scientific name:Trigonotis brevipes var. brevipes
[Overview]
A perennial 10–40 cm tall, found along mountain streams and in wetlands.
It has a short underground stem.
The whole plant is soft in texture.
The stem has appressed hairs; the base creeps slightly along the ground and the upper part rises upright.
The leaves are simple and alternate, elliptic, 1–6 cm long, with fine hairs on both surfaces and along the margins.
The leaves on the lower part of the stem have petioles, while those on the upper part are sessile.
Scorpioid inflorescences at the stem tips bear many very pale bluish purple flowers.
The flowers are about 0.3 cm across, and the corolla is 5-lobed with rounded lobes.
The fruit consists of 4 mericarps; the mericarps are tetrahedral, smooth, and have no ring-shaped appendage.