Chinese Foxglove

Rehmannia glutinosa is widely cultivated for its rhizomes which are used medicinally.

Herbs, 10-30 cm tall, densely villous with glandular and eglandular hairs. Rhizomes to 5.5 cm, fleshy. Stems purple-red. Basal leaves usually rosulate. Stem leaves gradually or abruptly decreasing in size or reduced to bracts upward; leaf blade ovate to narrowly elliptic, 2-13 X 1-6 cm, base tapering, margin irregularly crenate or obtusely serrate to toothed. Flowers axillary or in terminal racemes. Pedicel 0.5-3 cm, slender, ascending. Bracteoles absent. Calyx 1-1.5 cm, 10-veined; lobes 5, oblong-lanceolate, ovate-lanceolate, or subtriangular, 5-6 X 2-3 mm, rarely 2 lower lobes further lobed. Corolla 3-4.5 cm, white villous; tube narrow; lobes outside purple-red, inside yellow-purple, 5-7 X 4-10 mm, apex obtuse to emarginate. Stamens 4; anther locules oblong, ca. 2.5 mm, base divaricate. Ovary 2-loculed when young, 1-loculed with age. Capsule ovoid to narrowly ovoid, 1-1.5 cm. Fl. and fr. Apr-Jul.

Gansu, Hebei, Henan, Hubei, Jiangsu, Liaoning, Nei Mongol, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi.

* Mountain slopes, trailsides; near sea level to 1100 m.

Digitalis glutinosa Gaertner, Novi Comment. Acad. Sci. Imp. Petrop. 14: 544. 1770; Rehmannia chinensis Liboschitz ex Fischer & C. A. Meyer; R. glutinosa var. hemsleyana Diels; R. glutinosa var. huechingensis Chao & Shih; R. glutinosa f. huechingensis (Chao & Shih) P. G. Hsiao, R. glutinosa f. purpurea Matsuda.

Rehmannia glutinosa is a flowering broomrape, and one of the 50 fundamental herbs used in traditional Chinese medicine, where it has the name shēng dì huáng (Chinese: 生地黄). It is often sold as gān dì huáng (Chinese: 干地黄), gān meaning "dried". Unlike the majority of broomrapes, R. glutinosa is not parasitic, and is capable of independent photosynthesis.