Periyar Balsam is an annual upright herb up to 40 cm
tall, with four-angled, channelled, hairless stems, pale green,
becoming salmon-red, and spoon-shaped, toothed extrafloral nectaries.
It is named for the Periyar river. Leaves are opposite, decussate,
shortly stalked (1-2 mm); blades 3-6.3 x 4.5-5 mm, lance-shaped,
minutely toothed, narrowly pointed, green and velvet-hairy above, pale
green and hairless beneath, with a distinct midrib. Flowers are borne
in 4-5-flowered fascicles in leaf-axils; bracts about 1 × 0.5 mm.
Flowers are 7-9 mm across, white to pink; flower-stalks 1.5-2 cm at
anthesis, extending to 2.2 cm in fruit. Lateral sepals 4.5-5.5 x 0.5
mm, sickle-shaped; dorsal petal 4.5-5.5 × 5 mm, broadly ovate and
keeled. Lateral united petals 8-9 x 4 mm, 2-lobed, with a prominent 1
mm dorsal ear. Lower sepal 6-7.5 x 3 mm, funnel-shaped, with a stout
1-2 mm spur. Stamens are 5; column about 1.5 x 2 mm; anthers yellow.
Pistil about 1.5 x 1 mm, with a 5-toothed stigma. Capsules are 9-12 x
4.5 mm, spindle-shaped, containing 9-14 black, ellipsoid seeds.
Periyar Balsam is known only from Kerala.
Identification credit: Tabish
Photographed in Kerala.
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The flower labeled Periyar Balsam is ...