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Depgul
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Depgul
ative Photo: Narendra Joshi
Common name: Depgul, Chinese Milkwort • Ladakhi: རཻཀསེ་ Raikse,ཅགནཱ་ Chagna
Botanical name: Lancea tibetica    Family: Mazaceae (Mazus family)

Depgul is an annual herb, 3-15 cm tall, hairless except for leaf-stalks. Flowers are borne in fascicles of 3-5 or in a raceme. Bracts subulate-lanceolate. Sepal cup is about 1 cm, leathery, sepals subulate-triangular. Flowers are dark blue to purple, 1.5-2.5 cm. Flower-tube is 0.8-1.3 cm, throat yellowish, with purple dots. Lower lip middle lobe is entire, upper lip erect, deeply 2-lobed, rarely shallowly 2-parted. Rhizomes is up to 10 cm, with a pair of membranous scales on each node. Leaves are 6-10, rosulate; leaf blade obovate, obovate-oblong, or spatulate, 2-7 cm, somewhat leathery, base tapering, margin entire or obscurely and sparsely toothed, apex obtuse and usually apiculate.Fruit is red to dark purple, ovoid, about 1 cm, included in persistent calyx. Seeds numerous, brownish yellow, oblong, about 1 mm. Depgul is found in the Himalayas, from Kashmir to Bhutan, Tibet and W. China, at altitudes of 3300-4400 m. Flowering: May-July.

Identification credit: Narendra Joshi Photographed in Nubra Valley & Leh, Ladakh.

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