Mitella kiusiana Makino

M. Wakabayashi, 2006, Tiarella and Mitella, Flora of Japan, Volume 2 b: Angiospermae-Dicotyledoneae: Archichlamydeae (b), Kodansha, pp. 70-75 : 74

8. Mitella kiusiana Makino

in Bot. Mag. Tokyo 24: 221 (1910).

Japanese name: Tsukushi-charumeru-so.

Perennial herbs. Rhizomes long creeping, branched, with leaves loosely arranged. Leaf blade ovate, deeply cordate, acute, 2-7 cm long, 1-6 cm wide, deeply cleft and acutely 5-lobed, irregularly incised and toothed, hirsute above and on nerves beneath, greenish; petiole 4-20 cm long, densely long hirsute, with fused axillary stipules at base; stipules scarious, ovate, nearly entire, 5-8 mm long. Flowering stems 15-35 cm tall, erect, densely glandular pubescent, hirsute toward base. Inflorescences racemes, loosely many-flowered. Flowers April to May; pedicel ca. 2-5 mm long, minutely glandular. Calyx tube obconical, densely glandular pubescent, greenish; calyx lobes 5, triangular, acute, glabrous on adaxial and sparsely glandular on abaxial surfaces, ca. 0.8 mm long, spreading and reflexed, greenish. Petals 5, 5-7-pinnatiparted, glandular dotted, 4-4.4 mm long, spreading or reflexed, greenish; pinnae slender, spreading or obliquely ascending. Stamens 5, alternate calyx lobes, adjacent to base of petals, ca. 0.8 mm long; anthers broadly ovoid, cordate, ca. 0.7 mm long at anthesis, yellow. Disc prominent, nearly flat, greenish. Ovary inferior. Styles 2, erect, ca. 0.5 mm long, distinctly 2-4-lobed at tip; lobes spreading or slightly reflexed, with stigma at apex. Seeds oblong, ca. 1.1 mm long, scabrous and densely papillose, brownish.

Chromosome number: 2n = 28 (Wakabayashi 1973).

Japan: Kyushu. Wet, shady places along streams in mountainous areas. Endemic.