黑草 buchnera cruciata

因為自己矮小，容易注意到地面草本，也特別對小不顯眼的這類植物有共鳴。

黑草的名字很老實，指的是植物乾後黑色的狀況。但此草本開花時，卻立體曼妙。

請細意欣賞，那型態彷如形體浮華的當代建築摩天大樓。

參考植物資料，再對比，更覺這「花樓」的有趣美妙：黑草是一年生直立草本。莖纖細，圓柱形，上端略呈四方形。紫花秋末開，兩性，穗状花序，花冠高脚碟狀，密集頂生成四棱柱形。

這植物生於華南，也見於華中及東南亞。

flowers and tree always catch people’s attention, while herbaceous are relatively being ignored. i however love appreciating and studying many of these little plants, because they really have distinctive features and characters. think about trees, many of them resemble some others, but if you look with just some attention of different types of grasses sprung out from the ground you’ll see each looks different.

the chinese name of this plant is ‘black grass’. you can hardly connect to what you are seeing here. that name refers to the colour it is in once dried. in fact all parts of the plant are used medicinally, and ‘black grass’ sounds convincing in this sense.

i can only say i am fascinated by the structure and volume of the blossoms, it is so 3-d. quoting from efloras.org the more botanic description of the inflorescence: corolla blue-purple, narrowly tubular, somewhat curved, 6-7 mm, somewhat ribbed, villous on portion exserted from calyx; throat constricted.

黑草 buchnera cruciata – 被子植物門  angiospermae | 雙子葉植物綱 dicotyledoneae | 合瓣花亞綱 sympetalae | 管狀花目 tubiflorae order | 玄参科 scrophulariaceae family | 黑草属 buchnera genus | species:  buchnera cruciata hamilt.  frps.eflora.cn

參考 reference: 《百科百度》; efloras.org 1 & 2