Asystasia gangetica (L.) T. Anderson
[Justicia gangetica L.; Asystasia coromandeliana Nees]
(nat) Chinese violet, coromandel

Procumbent or scandent perennial herbs; stems 0.5-2 m long. Leaves ovate, 2.5-13 cm long, sparsely strigillose, especially on the veins, petioles 0.5-4.5 cm long. Flowers subtended by small, linear to triangular bracts 1-2 mm long, pedicels ca. 2 mm long; calyx lobes 5-7 mm long; corolla pale blue to purple, occasionally white or tinged yellow, 3-3.5 cm long, the lobes spreading. Capsules clavate, 2-3 cm long, with a short sterile beak 0.3-0.4 cm long, 2-lobed by protrusion of the seeds, glandular puberulent. Seeds 4. [In = 26, 28, 44, 48, 50, 52.] Native to India, Malay Peninsula, and Africa, grown as a ground cover in many tropical and subtropical areas; in Hawaii cultivated and commonly becoming naturalized, primarily in urban areas or in low elevation, disturbed habitats, documented from Midway Atoll, Kaua‘i, 0‘ahu, Molokai, and Maui, but probably on all of the main islands. First collected on 0‘ahu in 1925 [Brown 1276 (coll. Wilder), BISH].— Plate 1.