Chinese Chastetree

Fiber, medicinal.

It is often planted along water channel to check erosion, and readily grows from cuttings.

Its leaves are sometimes used for curing inflammatory swellings of joints, headache etc.

Shrubs or small trees. Branchlets densely gray tomen-tose. Leaves 3-7-foliolate; central leaflet distinctly petiolulate. Calyx campanulate, 5-dentate, gray tomentose. Corolla 2-lipped, 5-lobed, outside puberulent. Stamens exserted. Ovary subglabrous.

Shrubs, usually 1-2 m tall, rarely reaching the size of a small tree, up to 5 m tall, whitish to greyish tomentose except the upper surface of leaves and fruits. Leaves opposite-decussate, (1-) 3-5-foliolate, petiolate; petiole 3-6 cm long; leaflets usually lanceolate, 5-10 (-15) cm long, 1.5-4 cm broad, middle one largest, entire to irregularly denticulate, subsessile to petiolulate (petiolule 5-20 mm long). Terminal inflorescence 10-25 cm long, tapering-thyrsoid; cymes verticillate at nodes, peduncled. Flowers small, 3-5 mm across, usually blue or violet, subsessile to shortly pedicelled (pedicels up to 1 mm long). Calyx c. 2 mm long, increasing up to 3 mm in fruit, persistent, campanulate, 5-toothed. Corolla tube as long as the calyx; limb slightly 2-lipped, with 5, unequal lobes, densely ciliate, up to 2 mm long, largest one obovate-orbicular, undulate or crenulate, the others oblong, smaller. Stamens 4, didynamous, protruding, anther cells divaricating later. Drupe subglobose or somewhat ovoid, c. 5 mm in diameter, usually 4-celled, with 1 seed in each cell.

Anhui, Fujian, Gansu, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Hebei, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Nei Mongol, Ningxia, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Xizang, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Japan; E Africa, S and SE Asia, Pacific Islands]

Distribution: Pakistan, India, W. Asia and N. Africa; introduced and widely cultivated as an ornamental elsewhere.

Fl. Per.: Round the year.

100-3200 m.