Roodebergia kitamurana B.Nord.

Perennial diffuse branching herb, rooting at nodes, with ± ascending stems and branches, 1-2 dm high. Stems and branches slender, ca. 1 mm thick or less, terete, hirsute-hispid with white spreading acuminate hairs and shorter glandular hairs. Leaves opposite with internodes 2-12 mm long, erecto-patent to spreading, narrowly elliptic-oblong, 8-16 mm long, 3-4 mm wide (smaller on sterile shoots), entire, obtuse, flat, herbaceous, dull green, rather densely hirsute­hispid on both sides with ca. 1 mm long trichomes swollen at base and tapering to fine acuminate points, finely midveined below; leaf margins entire; leaf­base half-clasping. Peduncles terminal, 2-11 cm long, faintly striate, naked except for a single narrowly linear-filiform bract 2-5 mm long and situated near the middle or more proximally. Capitula solitary, erect, homogamous, discoid, 1-1.5 cm in diam. Involucre more or less biseriate, cup-shaped; involucral bracts ca. 10, narrowly oblong-lanceolate, 8 mm long, 1-1.2 mm wide, subequal, midveined and with fainter parallel veins, shortly glandular and sparsely setose, tips somewhat villous; 1-2 outermost phyllaries somewhat smaller, ca. 5 mm long and 0.7-0.8 mm wide. Receptacle flat, glabrous, alveolate. Florets ca. 15-25, hermaphroditic. Corolla tubular, somewhat widening upwards, 7.5 mm long, purplish, glabrous except for some small multicellular glandular hairs on lobe tips, shortly 5-lobed; lobes triangular-ovate, 0.7 mm long, acute, each lobe with two distinct elongate resin glands marginally and proximally, also with fine lateral veins running down the corolla from the sinuses between lobes; no midvein or midline. Anthers 2.5-2.7 mm long incl. the ovate, acute apical appendage; base obtuse, ecaudate; endothecium radial with numerous thickenings on longitudinal (vertical) walls; filament collar straight, uniform, 0.4 mm long. Style terete, 2-veined, each branch receiving one vein; branches linear, 2 mm long, proximal half with narrow lateral stigmatic lines, distal half a narrowly triangular-ovate or lanceolate appendage: subacute, sterile, papillate with oblong papillae with rounded tips. Cypselas narrowly elliptic-oblong, somewhat compressed but without marginal ribs, 6-7 mm long, 1.5 mm wide, glabrous but with scattered microscopic duplex trichomes especially in the proximal half (these hairs 3-celled, erecto-patent, 5-13 µm long, with obtuse-rounded apex), light brown, smooth, shiny, distinctly 2-veined marginally; carpopodium distinct, of 10-15 cell rows; ovary crystals numerous, very small and of different shapes, quadratic, oblong, spindle-or needle-shaped. Pappus bristles numerous, biseriate, equal, distinctly barbellate with slender, acute teeth, 7-8 mm long, straight, whitish, basally shortly connate to a dark-coloured annulus. Pollen grains ca. 30 µm in diam., minutely spinulose