Bindweed Rattleweed is is perennial prostrate herb,
up to a foot cm long, sometimes woody at base. Stems are much branched,
branches slender, trailing, terete, younger ones slightly channelled,
hairy. Leaves are simple, alternate, 1.7-3.5 x 1-2 cm, elliptic,
elliptic-ovate, oblong-lanceolate, round-oblong, or linear-lanceolate,
broad and oblique at base, pointed, blunt, rounded or rarely slightly
flat and mucronulate at tip. Leaves becoming hairless above, paler and
velvet-hairy beneath, especially along the veins, margins involute,
main lateral veins 4-7 pairs, prominent below and joining
intramarginally. Stipules are lanceolate or linear-lanceolate, 1.5-2.5
mm long, long-pointed at tip, deflexed. Leaf-stalks are 1-2 mm long,
velvet-hairy. Flower racemes are leaf-opposed or at branch ends,
carried on 1.5-9.0 cm long, pubescent, stout stalks. Flowers are 1-5,
5-9 x 3-6 mm, carried on 2-4 mm long, velvet-hairy stalks, bracts
subulate, ovate-lanceolate or heart-shaped, bracteoles 2, linear or
linear-lanceolate, more than 1 mm long. Calyx is deeply 5-lobed, sepals
equal, 4.5-6.0 x about 1 mm, lanceshaped, long-pointed at tip, villous,
tube about half the length of lobes. Petals are yellow, slightly
exserted, vexillum obovate-oblong or orbicular, 6-8 x 3-8 mm, claw less
than 3 mm long, curved or straight, glabrous or pubescent along the
midvein. Wing petals are obovate-oblong, 5-7 x 2.0-2.5 mm, claw more
than 3 mm long, keel petals 6.5-7.5 x 4.5-5.0 mm with short twisted
beak. Stamens with longer anthers oblong, 1.0-1.5 mm long and shorter
anthers ovoid, ca 0.5 mm long. Ovary is oblong, 3.5-5.0 mm long. Pods
are stalkless, oblong or obovate-oblong, 1.0-1.5 cm x about 5 mm,
hirsute, deflexed, seeds 6-10, kidney-shaped, 1.5-2.0 x 0.5-2.0 mm,
black. Bindweed Rattleweed is found in Peninsular India and Sri Lanka.
Identification credit: Anurag Sharma
Photographed at Nandi Hills, Karnataka.
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The flower labeled Bindweed Rattleweed is ...