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Purple Hedyotis
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Purple Hedyotis
P Native Photo: C. Rajasekar
Common name: Purple Hedyotis • Malayalam: Koonthamaniyan
Botanical name: Hedyotis purpurascens    Family: Rubiaceae (Coffee family)
Synonyms: Oldenlandia purpurascens

Purple Hedyotis is a small woody erect shrub, with branches having prominent leaf scars. Leaves are ovate-lanceshaped, blunt or somewhat pointed, base narrow, hairless, leathery, up to 6 cm long, about 1.5 cm broad. Stipules are comblike. Flowers are purple, borne in many-flowered corymb-like clusters a branch-ends. Sepal-tube is long and sepals are oblong blunt, purplish. Flowers are 5 mm long with small petals. Capsules are 8-10 mm long, with the enlarged calyx, narrowly ellipsoid, cells many seeded. Purple Hedyotis is found in Peninsular India. Flowering: October-December.

Identification credit: C. Rajasekar Photographed in Kalakkad-Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve, Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu.

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