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Nilambur Cobra Lily
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Nilambur Cobra Lily
P Native Photo: P.S. Sivaprasad
Common name: Nilambur Cobra Lily
Botanical name: Arisaema nilamburense    Family: Araceae (Arum family)
Synonyms: Arisaema auriculatum E.Barnes [Illegit.]

Nilambur Cobra Lily is a rare and threatened herb from Southern Western Ghats, carrying a single compound leaf. It is name for the Nilambur region of Kerala where the plant was first located and named. Corms are up to 2 cm across. Leaf is digitately compound. Leaflets are 5-6 in number, up to 16 x 8 cm, ovate to elliptic, tapering, base wedge-shaped, membranous. Leaf-stalk is up to 45 cm, base sheathing the flower-cluster-stalk. Flowers appear along with leaves, carried on flower-cluster-stalk up to 16 cm tall. The inflorescence is shaped like the hood of a cobra, hence the common name. Spathe or the hood is about 7 cm long; greenish purple, limb with a tail-tapering, incurved, about 5 cm long. Spadix, about 9 cm long, is bent at the tip. Male flowers are scattered at base in male spadix, stamens 4, kidney-shaped; female flowers crowded at base; neuters few above the female; ovary oblong, flat at tip with stalkless stigma. Nilambur Cobra Lily is endemic to Southern Western Ghats. Flowering: June-September.

Identification credit: P.S. Sivaprasad Photographed in Silent Valley National Park, Kerala.

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