Japanese name: アブノメ（虻の目、虻の眼） Scientific name:Dopatrium junceum
[Overview]
An annual growing in rice paddies and wetlands.
The whole plant is soft; the stem is fleshy, hollow in parts, and erect.
Leaves are simple and opposite; on the lower part of the stem they are narrowly oblong to lanceolate, about 1–3 cm long, and stalkless, and they gradually become smaller toward the upper part of the stem.
The leaf margins are entire.
The flowers are pale purple and borne singly on flower stalks extending from the leaf axils.
The corolla is tubular, with a 5-lobed lip-shaped tip; the lower lip is 3-lobed.
Stalkless cleistogamous flowers (flowers that do not open) are borne in the leaf axils around the middle of the stem.
The fruit is a spherical capsule, and the seeds have a net-like pattern.
[Notes]
The Japanese name compares the way the fruits are borne in opposite pairs to the eyes of a horsefly.
The alternative name comes from the crackling sound made when the stem is crushed.
