Botanical name: Lepidagathis gandhii    Family: Acanthaceae (Acanthus family)

Yellowish Lepidagathis is a newly discovered (2023) perennial undershrub, erect, up to 60 cm tall. It is named for Dr Kanchi N. Gandhi, Senior Nomenclatural Registrar, Harvard University Herbaria, Cambridge, US. Stems are well-branched, 4-angled, ash-colored when old, green to purplish when young. Leaves are stalkless, isophyllous, opposite-decussate, oblong to inverted-lanceshaped, 15-30 x 4-8 mm, blunt or flat at base, wavy with minute retrorsely ciliolate margins, pointed with spiny tip, lateral veins 3-5 pairs, prominent on lower surface. Flowers are borne in a spike, compactly ovoid due to prostrate converged fertile bracts, alternately arranged in the axils of leaves with scale-like sterile bracts at the base, 8-15 mm long, up to 9-flowered. Sepal-cup is 5-lobed, hetero-morphic, tapering with spiny tip, silky on lower surface, hairless above. Anticous lobes 2, fused at base (more than half of their total lengths, i.e., 4.2-6.3 mm long), almost equal, overlapping; lobes oblong to narrowly elliptic, 8.5-10.4 x 2.3-3.3 mm; posticous lobe, lance-ovate, 8.5-11.2 x 1.5-3.4 mm; lateral lobes 2, equal, linear, 6.8-9.8 x 0.8-1.5 mm. Flowers are two-lipped, 1.2-1.6 cm long, white (yellowish at maturity) with many purplish-brown markings on expanded portion of tube inside and yellow dots or patches on the palate; tube 8.8-10.5 mm long, cylindric below, 4.4-6 mm long, hairless inside, abruptly expanded above, 4.3-4.7 mm long. Upper lip is arcuate, 1.8-3.6 x 4-4.7 mm, minutely 2-lobed at tip, each lobe 3-veined; lower lip 3-lobed, 4.5-6.2 mm long including lobes; middle lobe broader than the lateral lobes, nearly round, 2.7-2.9 x 2.5-4.5 mm, crenulate, 3-veined; lateral lobes 1.7-3.1 x 2.5-3.4 mm. Yellowish Lepidagathis is native to Tamil Nadu.

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The flower labeled Yellowish Lepidagathis is ...