Scaredy Cat Plant is a herb which is sold and
marketed as a natural repellent to cats and dogs, hence the common
name. It is a profusely branched herb, clothed with soft hairs. Leaves
are up to 3 x 2.5 cm, obovate, rounded toothed, velvet-hairy below,
fleshy; leaf-stalk to 1 cm. Flower spikes are borne at branch-ends, up
to 7 cm long, woolly, bracts 8 x 5 mm, ovate, mucronate, punctuate with
red glands, deciduous. Calyx is velvet-hairy out side, upper round,
fringed with hairs, the lower 4 toothed, 2 mm; flower tube 5 mm, lower
lip 5 mm, blue; staminal tube 8 mm; style 1.5 cm, stigma bifid. Scaredy
Cat Plant is found in Peninsular India and Africa.
Identification credit: Siddarth Machado
Photographed in Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve, Tamil Nadu.
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The flower labeled Scaredy Cat Plant is ...