Pretty Stone Flower is a perennial herb with with
rather showy flowers. Flowers are purple, about 2.8 cm; tube cylindric,
about 2.2 cm x 7 mm, hairy on the outside; upper lip about 4 mm; lower
lip 6.5-8 mm. Pistil is about 2.2 cm, ovary about 1.1 cm. Flowers are
borne in 7-9-flowered cymes; flower-cluster-stalk 3-4 cm long,
sparsely glandular finely velvet-hairy; bracts free, broadly ovate,
about 3 mm, nearly hairless. Flower-stalk is 2-5 mm. Calyx is slightly
zygomorphic, 3-4.5 mm; limb indistinctly 2-lipped, 5-lobed; tube 2-3
mm; lobes nearly equal, triangular, 1-2 mm, hairless or outside
glandular velvet-hairy, margin entire. Stems are 17-26 cm, densely
finely velvet-hairy. Leaves are whorled; leaf-stalk up to 7 cm; leaf
blade ovate to broadly ovate, 2-10 x 2-6.2 cm, herbaceous, above
sparsely to densely finely velvet-hairy, sparsely yellow glandular,
base oblique, wedge-shaped to heart-shaped, margin rounded toothed to
sawtoothed, tip pointed; lateral veins 5-7 on each side of midrib.
Capsule 2.5-4 cm. Pretty Stone Flower is found in Eastern Himalayas,
from Nepal, Bhutan to NE India, at altitudes of 1200-2600 m. Flowering:
July-August.
Identification credit: Nongthombam Ullysess
Photographed in Arunachal Pradesh.
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The flower labeled Pretty Stone Flower is ...