Ban Bian Lian

Lobelia chinensis is a small, slender, creeping perennial herb of the family Campanulaceae (subfamily Lobelioideae) native to wet meadows, paddy margins and ditch banks across southern and central China, the Korean peninsula, Japan and Southeast Asia. The thread-like, glabrous, often rooting stems are only 10-25 cm long and bear alternate, narrowly lanceolate to linear-oblong, sessile leaves 1-2 cm long with a few obscure teeth on the margin. The distinctive solitary axillary flowers are 8-12 mm across and have a strongly bilabiate, deeply five-lobed pink to pale lilac corolla in which all five lobes spread to one side, giving a fan-like appearance characteristic of Lobelia, with the five anthers fused around the style. The fruit is an obconical, two-valved capsule 5-8 mm long containing numerous minute seeds. The whole flowering herb with root is collected in summer.