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East-Himalayan Tupistra
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East-Himalayan Tupistra
P Native Photo: Dipankar Borah
Common name: East-Himalayan Tupistra
Botanical name: Tupistra stoliczana    Family: Asparagaceae (Asparagus family)
Synonyms: Tupistra veratrifolia, Tupistra ashihoi,

East-Himalayan Tupistra is a perennial herb with rhizome long, erect, or rising up, branching, thick and stout, brown, about 21 cm long, about 3 cm in diameter. Roots are whitish to light brown, branching, forming a fibrous network. Stem is erect, very short, 1-2 cm tall, covered with leaf sheaths. Leaves are annually 1, basal, distinctly stalked; leaf-stalk straight, rigid, channelled, 0.5-1.3 cm in diameter, about 41 cm long; leaf blade leathery, dark green, glossy, elliptic to broadly elliptic, pointed at tip, gradually tapering to the base, about 70 cm long, about 16 cm wide. Flower-cluster-stalk arise in leaf-axils, erect, about 21 cm long, round, 3-5 mm in diameter. Inflorescence is at branch-ends, many-flowered, about 16 cm long, 3 cm in diameter. Floral bracts are rhomboid, about 4 × 3 mm, greenish. Flowers are densely arranged, stalkless, dark dirty purplish to almost black, bell-shaped, broadly opening, about 12 mm across, perianth is about 1 cm long, very fleshy, proximally fused for about half of the length, tube 5 mm long, segments ovate, blunt, 6 mm long. Ripening fruits are spherical, 3-3.5 cm across, hairless, dark creamy white, berry-like, 2-seeded. East-Himalayan Tupistra is found in East Himalaya, from Assam and Arunachal Pradesh to Myanmar and Thailand, at altitudes of 80-300 m. Flowering: September-October.

Identification credit: Dipankar Borah Photographed in Pasighat, Arunachal Pradesh & Sonitpur, Assam.

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