| Synonyms: | |
| Common names: | |
| Frequency: | Local and rare. |
| Status: | Native |
| Description: |
Perennial herb up to 10 cm tall. Stems 4-angled and winged along the angles, hairless. Leaves in 2–4 closely spaced pairs at base, forming a rosette, sometimes with a more widely spaced pair above as cauline leaves. Leaves opposite, sessile, obovate to elliptic, 2 – 7.5 cm long, venation palmate with mostly 3 or 5 main veins from the base, both leaf surfaces hairless and minutely gland-dotted; margin entire or sometimes shallowly toothed towards apex. Inflorescence terminal, capitate and many-flowered; bracts subtending the inflorescence lanceolate, up to 16 mm long; bracts subtending individual flowers ranging from foliaceous lanceolate bracts similar to those that subtend the inflorescence to minute linear bracts 2 mm long; all bracts green, becoming dark red in fruit. Flowers sessile or shortly pedicellate, pedicels to 1.5 mm long. Calyx 10-14 mm long, hairless, funnelshaped, split to the base, 5 or 6 lobed, lobes unequal, lanceolate, 5 – 10 mm long; margins entire or minutely serrulate. Corolla purple-blue with irregular dark and light markings at base of lower lip, glandular puberulous, 17-18 mm long; tube 8-9 mm long, upper lip rounded at apex, undivided, lower lip 8-10 mm long, 3-lobed; lobes 3 mm long, central lobe broadly obovate, 4 mm wide, lateral lobes obovate 2-3 mm wide. Stamens 4. Fruit an ovoid capsule, 5 mm wide, shortly beaked at apex with the persistent style. |
| Type location: |
Mozambique |
| Notes: | |
| Derivation of specific name: | txitongensis: of the Txitonga (Chitonga) Mountains in northern Mozambique, where the type specimen was collected. |
| Habitat: | In Brachystegia-Uapaca woodland in full sun in a red loam soil. |
| Altitude range: (metres) | 1515 m (approx) |
| Flowering time: | Apr - May |
| Worldwide distribution: | Known only from the type locality and probably endemic to the Txitonga Mts in northern Mozambique. |
| FZ divisions: | N |
| Growth form(s): | |
| Endemic status: | Endemic |
| Red data list status: | Critically Endangered |
| Insects associated with this species: | |
| Spot characters: | Display spot characters for this species |
| Literature: |
Osborne, J., Datizua, C., Mucaleque, P. & Fischer, E. (2022). Hartliella txitongensis (Linderniaceae), a new species from Mozambique Kew Bulletin DOI 10.100 Pages 1 - 9. Protologue (Includes a picture). |