Caralluma bicolor - Bicolor Caralluma

Bicolor Caralluma is a plant up to 60-80 cm tall, stem fleshy, growing in dense clumbs, branchlets unbranched, ascending quadrangular, pointed; internode 1.5-3.5 cm long and hairless. Flowers are borne in racemes at branch-ends, 15-20 cm long. Flowers are 5-merous 7-12 distant, solitary or paired; flower-stalk upto 1.5cm long. Bract and bracteoles are minute. Sepals are 1.4 × 1 cm, ovate, tip tapering. Flowers are hairless, 1.8-2.5cm long, greenish yellow with reddish brown striations; tube up to 0.2 cm long, petals in pinwheel arrangement, lanceshaped-oblong, 7×2.5mm, tip cuspidate. Corona is bisawtoothed; the outer linear, 0.8-1cm long, lobes slightly curved with small projections between the lobes; the inner corona basally united with the outer corona, slightly keeled near the base, 7-9 mm long, reddish brown with small projections between the lobes. Seed-pods are cylindrical with tapering ends, green with black stripes, 8-12cm long; seeds oblong-obovoid, 5 ×2mm; coma silky-white. The whole plant is used as a vegetable by the local folks. Bicolor Caralluma is endemic to the eastern slopes of the Western Ghats of the Coimbatore District of Tamil Nadu. Flowering: August-December.