Hedyotis scandens Roxb.

Shrubs or herbs, perennial, lianescent, climbing, or scandent, to several meters; stems compressed terete to angled, smooth or sulcate, glabrous or puberulent in lines. Leaves subsessile to petiolate; petiole to 5 mm, glabrous; blade drying papery to subleathery, pale abaxially, oblong-lanceolate, elliptic, narrowly elliptic, or elliptic-oblong, 5-10 × 1.5-4 cm, glabrous, base acute to cuneate then decurrent, apex long acuminate; secondary veins 3-5 pairs but not evident; stipules fused to petiole bases, truncate to triangular, 2.5-4 mm, glabrous to usually puberulent or strigillose, ciliolate to entire, apex acute to acuminate or bilobed, sometimes glandular and/or with bristle inserted below top of stipule. Inflorescences terminal and usually also in axils of uppermost leaves, cymose to compound-cymose, 2-15 cm, densely pilosulous or hirtellous, pedunculate; peduncles 2-3 cm; bracts triangular to narrowly triangular, 0.3-6 mm; pedicels 1-3 mm. Flowers pedicellate, distylous. Calyx glabrous; hypanthium portion obconical, ca. 1 mm, sometimes ridged; limb 1-2 mm, lobed for 1/3-1/2, lobes triangular and thickened, sometimes costate. Corolla white or yellow, tubular-funnelform to funnelform, outside glabrous [or puberulent in India], inside densely villous in throat and throughout lobes; tube 1-2 mm; lobes narrowly spatulate-oblong to narrowly triangular, 3-4 mm, acute. Anthers shortly to long exserted, ca. 1.2 mm. Stigmas 0.3-1 mm. Fruit capsular, subglobose, ellipsoid, or ovoid, 3-5 × 3-5 mm, glabrous, cartilaginous to stiffly papery, loculicidally dehiscent across top then sometimes septicidal, beak rounded to conical, 1.2-2 mm; seeds several, black, angled. Fl. Jul-Sep, fr. Aug-Sep.

A tropical plant. In Assam it grows in open areas or scrub forests. In China it grows in sparse forests and on humid soils in valleys between 1,000-1,800 m above sea level. In Yunnan.

The whole plant is boiled and eaten in curries. It is cooked with other vegetables or fish.

Can be grown by seedlings.