Thottea sivarajanii - Kerala Thottea

Kerala Thottea is a shrub, 1-2 m tall, with swollen nodes, nodes 20-30 or more per shoots, internodes 2-5 cm long. It is named in the honor of Dr. V.V. Sivarajan, for contribution to taxonomy. Leaves are alternate, bifarious 13-22 x 2.5 - 6 cm, narrowly elliptic-lanceshaped, tapering at tip, entire, papery, hairless above, velvet-hairy berneath; base blunt, rounded or pointed; veins prominent, strongly 3-nerved from the base, prominently raised in the upper surface, slightly curved towards the tip, lateral nerves 2-3. Leaf-stalk is 3-5 mm long. Flowers are stalkless, borne in in leaf-axils, in bracteate stalked cymes; flower-cluster-stalk 1.5-2 cm long; bracts 6 mm long. Flowers are regular, 10 mm diameter, deep purple, darker at center; flower lobed to the base; tepals 3 (very rarely 4), broadly ovate or nearly round, tapering or apiculate at tip, 6-8 x 5-6 mm, bristly hairy, margins strongly reflexed. hairs. Stamens are 6-8. Capsules are 5-7 cm long, green, becoming hairless, sharply 4-angled; seeds many, trigonous, irregularly and transversely corrugated. Kerala Thottea is larval host plant for some butterfly species. It is endemic to Southern Western Ghats. Flowering: All year.