Distimake rhyncorhiza - Beaked-Root Morning Glory

Beaked-Root Morning Glory is an endangered prostrate or trailing herb, with tuberous root. Stem is thread-like, hairless. Leaves are heart-shaped in outline, deeply 5-7-palmately lobed, the central lobe tapering, the lateral lobes with an notched, shortly with a short sharp point tip; blade 4 x 5 cm; margins irregularly dissected; upper surface bristly with simple yellowish hairs, lower surface hairless; leaf-stalk hairless, 1-1.5 cm long. Flowers are borne in leaf-axils, in 1-2-flowered cymes. Flower-cluster-stalks are thread-like, hairless, 5-7 cm long, nearly as long as the leaves, about 4 times longer than the leaf-stalks; bracteoles lanceshaped, about 2mm long; flower-stalks thread-like, hairless, 0.3 cm long. Sepals are 5, appressed to the flower tube, hairless, unequal, the 2 outer shorter, narrowly elliptic, 1.4 × 0.3 cm, tip shortly tapering; inner sepals longer, narrowly elliptic, 2 x 0.3 cm, tip shortly tapering. Flowers are funnel-shaped, bright sulphur-yellow, 3.5-4 cm long, hairless. Stamens are unequal in length, 2 short and 3 long, shortly velvet-hairy at the base of the filaments, yellow; anthers white, spirally twisting on spltting. Style is thread-like, hairless, white; stigma with 2 spherical lobes. Fruits are capsular, ellipsoid, 1.1 x 1.0 cm, hairless. Beaked-Root Morning Glory is found in the Western Ghats. Flowering: July-October.