Palm Star Grass is a stout herb up to 1 m tall. Rhizomes
are tuberous, thick, with creeping, slender stolons. Leaves are often
4-7, carried on stalks 30--80 cm long. Leaf-blade is oblong-lanceshaped
to suboblong, 40-90 x 5-14 cm, pleated papery, sometimes velvety,
margin entire, tip long-pointed. Flowering stems are short, only 15-30
cm, brown hairy. Flower-racemes are nodding, head-like to subovoid,
2.5-5 cm, densely many flowered; bracts ovate-lanceolate to lanceolate,
1.5--2.5 cm, hairy. Flower-stalks are about 7 mm. Flowers are yellow
with ovate-oblong petals about 8 x 3.5-4 mm, tip blunt. Outer petals
are hairy above, inner ones hairy above on midvein or at base of
midvein. Stamens are 5-6 mm, filament less than 1 mm; anther linear,
about 5 mm. Ovary is subglobose to oblong, hairy. Style are longer than
stamens, slender; stigma subcapitate. Berry is white, nearly round, 4-5
mm in diameter, beakless. Seeds are black with irregular stripes.
Palm Star Grass is found in the Himalayas, from Nepal to Assam, Bengal, Burma,
Ceylon, Malay and S. China, at altitudes of 1800-2000 m. Flowering:
May-June.
Identification credit: Vijayasankar Raman
Photographed in Sundar Nursery, Delhi.
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The flower labeled Palm Star Grass is ...