Didymocarpus cinereus - Ashy Stone Flower

Ashy Stone Flower is a perennial, rock-swelling herb, up to 30 cm tall. Flowers are borne in leaf-axils, in corymb-like cymes, not overtopping the leaves. Flowers are funnel-shaped, about 5 cm long, glandular hairy outside, hairless inside; tube about 3 cm long, purplish; limb two-lipped, upper lip 2-lobed, rounded, about 6 x 8 mm, lower lip 3-lobed, oblong-rounded, about 9 x 6 mm, purple or bluish-purple with white striations on throat and lobes. Ovary is cylindrical, about 3 cm long, stalkless. Flower-cluster-stalks is slender, 2-6 cm long, flower-stalks slender, 2-8 mm long. Sepal-cup is bell-shaped, about 6 mm long, 5-lobed, purplish, tube about 4 mm long; sepals triangular, 2-3 mm long, pointed or blunt at tip. Primary stem is stout, cylindrical, 1-4 cm long, terminating in 2-6, opposite, long-stalked leaves; 1-4 slender stems from tip of primary stem, each terminating in 2 or 4 reduced stalkless leaves with a flower-cluster-stalk arising from each axil. Leaf-stalks are 6-21 cm long, hairy; blade broadly elliptic, ovate or nearly round, 5-18 x 4-15 cm, base heart-shaped to wedge-shaped, sometimes oblique, margins rounded toothed to sawtoothed, somewhat pointed to blunt or sometimes rounded at tip, green above, pale green beneath, dotted with yellow stalkless spherical glands on both surfaces, secondary veins 4-8 pairs. Capsules are linear, slightly sickle shaped, about 5 x 0.2 cm, brown, hairless, stipe 0.5-1 cm long. Ashy Stone Flower is found in Central Nepal to Arunachal Pradesh. Flowering:July-September.