Globba sessiliflora - Stalkless Swan Flower

Stalkless Swan Flower is a herb with rhizome small, 3 x 0.2 cm, conical, light yellow-grey inside. Leafy shoots are 1-3 ft high, lower vegetative bracts green to reddish-green, sparsely velvet-hairy. Leaves are 5-20 x 2-5 cm, oblong-lanceshaped, tip tapering, lower surface densely velvet-hairy, upper surface sparsely velvet-hairy; shortly stalked or stalkless. Flowers are borne at branch-ends, in 10-20 cm long, erect clusters, bearing few to many slender branches in the axils of bracts. Flowers are 3.5-4 cm long, calyx flat, 8 mm long, shortly 3-lobed, sepals equal, hairless. Flower tube is 1.8-2 cm long, orange, densely velvet-hairy; petals unequal, spreading; dorsal lobe about 6 x 3 mm, cup-shaped with an apical hood, orange-yellow, lower middle portion minutely velvet-hairy; lateral lobes about 5 x 3 mm, ovate, orange-yellow, hairless. Lip much longer than the flower lobes, 12 x 4 mm, linear, tip notched, orange-yellow, hairless. Lateral staminodes about 16 x 3 mm, linear, tip tapering, orange, outer surface velvet-hairy. Staminal filament 2 cm long, slender; anther small, about 4 mm, thecae parallel, without appendages, connective slightly projecting to form a hood at the tip. Style is long, protruding from the anther lobes, mouth of the stigma hairy. Fruit is 2 x 1.5 cm, spherical to ovoid, slightly warted, splitting open. Stalkless Swan Flower is found in South India to Thailand. Flowering: July-September.