Botanical name: Abelmoschus angulosus var. purpureus    Family: Malvaceae (Mallow family)
Synonyms: Hibiscus setinervis

Purple Wild Musk Mallow is a woody subshrub up to 2 m tall; stems stout, round, densely clothed with erect, rigid, yellowish hairs. Leaves are alternate, 5-14 x 6-15 cm, heart-shaped at base, 3-7 angular or lobed, 5-7 nerved at base, margins sawtoothed, velvet-hairy with stiff appressed simple hairs on both surfaces; leaf-stalks to 16 cm long. Flowers are borne in leaf-axils, solitary. Involucellar bracts 4, fused throughout their length, splitting on one side at anthesis, ovate- pointed, leathery, erect, accrescent, prominently ribbed, densely bristly with rigid bristly hairs intermingled with short star-shaped hairs outside, densely appressed hairy within. Flower are up to 10 cm long, uniformly deep pink. Capsules 4.5 cm long, ovoid, pointed, very densely velvet-hairy with pale yellowish, rigid shiny prickly hairs. Seeds 3 mm diameter, subspherical, brownish-black, concentrically velvet-hairy with white hairs. Purple Wild Musk Mallow is found in Indo-Malesia. In India it is distributed in Southern Western Ghats. Flowering: October-December.

Your name:
Your email:
Your comments
The flower labeled Purple Wild Musk Mallow is ...