Botanical name: Corchorus depressus    Family: Tiliaceae (Falsa family)
Synonyms: Corchorus antichorus, Corchorus humilis, Corchorus microphyllus

Bahuphali is a mat forming, prostrate, much branched woody perennial. Flowers are borne in mostly 2-flowered cymes, flower-cluster-stalk minute. Flowers are yellow, 6-8 mm across, flower-stalk about 1 mm long. Sepals are yellowish-green, linear-oblong, 3-4 mm long, spreading, pointed. Petals are obovate-spoon-shaped, as long as sepals, blunt. Stamens are 8-10, filaments about 4 mm long, erect. Stems are diffusely branched from woody rootstock, young branches sparsely hairy, older ones hairless. Leaves are 3-ribbed, elliptic to broadly elliptic, 4-18 mm long, 2-9 mm broad, hairless except the scattered hairy costae, plicate in bud, rounded toothed-sawtoothed, without basal bristly appendages, blunt. Leaf-stalks are 1.5-2.5 cm long, thread-like, stipules linear-curved, about 2 mm long. Capsules are oblong-cylindric, straight or curved, becoming hairless, 7-22 mm long, with about 1.5-2 mm long beak, 4-loculed, locules transversely septate. Bahuphali is found in Central and North West India and Pakistan to north and tropical Africa and Cape Verde Islands. Flowering: February-November.

Your name:
Your email:
Your comments
The flower labeled Bahuphali is ...