Phryma leptostachya subsp. asiatica ("Haedokuso")

Japanese name: ハエドクソウ （蠅毒草）
Scientific name: Phryma leptostachya subsp. asiatica

[Overview]
A perennial 50–70 cm tall, found in slightly shaded places in woods and at woodland edges near villages and in the mountains.
It has a short underground stem.
The stem is erect, slightly branched in the upper part, with slightly swollen nodes.
The stem is covered with short downward-pointing hairs.
The leaves are simple and opposite, tending to grow along the whole stem, 7–10 cm long and 4–7 cm wide, broadly ovate to elliptic, with a heart-shaped to truncate base.
The leaves at the base of the stem are heart-shaped.
Both surfaces of the leaf have hairs on the veins; on the underside the veins are dense and the fine veins are distinct.
The leaf margin is serrated.
The leaves on the lower part of the stem have long petioles, but those on the upper part are almost sessile.
Spikes 10–20 cm long at the stem tip and in the leaf axils bear flowers sparsely.
The flowers are tubular, 0.5 cm long, with a two-lipped tip, and white, often tinged with pale pink.
The upper lip of the corolla is 2-lobed, and the width of the lobes narrows abruptly like shoulders.
The flowers first face upward, then sideways when open, and downward at the fruiting stage.
The fruit is a capsule 5 mm long.
The fruit is enclosed by the calyx and is carried by sticking to animals and clothing with the hooked projection at the tip of the calyx.

[Uses]
It is poisonous.
The whole plant is used medicinally, and the sap of the roots is used as a material for flypaper.

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