Plant Encyclopedia
Mitella koshiensis
Japanese name: コシノチャルメルソウ (越の哨吶草)
Scientific name: Mitella koshiensis
[Overview]
A perennial found in moist shade in forests.
It has a rather long, creeping rhizome.
The leaves are basal leaves tufted at the tip of the rhizome, broadly ovate, 3–6 cm long and 3–5 cm wide, with 5 shallow lobes.
The leaf margin has uneven teeth, and both surfaces are hairy.
The petioles are densely covered with long hairs and have almost no glandular hairs.
Female flowers and bisexual flowers occur on separate plants.
A flower stalk 20–50 cm tall is produced, with long curved hairs on the lower part and dense white glandular hairs on the upper part.
The flowers have 5 petals, but each petal is pinnately divided into 5–9 lobes, giving the flower a distinctive shape.
The petals are tinged reddish purple.
The calyx tube is shallowly conical, and the calyx lobes are triangular and spread open or curve backward at flowering.
The flower stalks are densely covered with white glandular hairs.
The fruit is a capsule that faces upward and is shaped like a long, slender trumpet.
[Notes]
The Japanese name derives from the plant growing wild in Koshi no Kuni (the old Koshi province) and from the fruit's resemblance to the charumera (a reed instrument).
Details
Translated from our Japanese encyclopedia. If anything differs, the Japanese page is correct.
