Japanese name: ヒサウチソウ（久内草） Scientific name:Bellardia trixago
[Overview]
An annual or biennial 10–30 cm tall, sometimes exceeding 50 cm, found in wasteland and on embankments.
It is a hemiparasitic plant.
The whole plant is covered with glandular hairs and soft hairs and is sticky.
The stem is erect and usually unbranched.
The leaves are simple and opposite, linear-lanceolate to broadly lanceolate, 1.5–5 cm long and 0.3–0.8 cm wide, without petioles.
The leaf margins have several pairs of coarse teeth.
A short spike-like inflorescence is produced at the stem tip; the inflorescence has bracts, those in the lower part leaf-like, and those in the upper part lanceolate to narrowly elliptic with entire margins.
The flowers emerge from between the bracts and are white, lipped, and about 2 cm long.
The upper lip of the corolla is tinged pink to purple, and the lower lip is divided into 3 lobes and spreads widely.
The fruit is a capsule.
[History]
It was discovered in Nagoya, Aichi in 1982, and naturalization has been confirmed in the Tokai region to the Kinki region and in Shikoku.
[Notes]
The Japanese name commemorates Hisauchi Kiyotaka, a plant taxonomist who also studied naturalized plants.
