FoI
Afghani Christolea
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Afghani Christolea
ative Photo: Prashant Awale
Common name: Afghani Christolea • Ladakhi: སནཀ་་Sanak
Botanical name: Christolea crassifolia    Family: Brassicaceae (Mustard family)
Synonyms: Christolea afghanica, Ermania crassifolia, Koelzia afghanica

Afghani Christolea is a leafy perennial herb, 15-40 cm long, prostrate or suberect, much branched, densely hairy to almost hairless with simple hairs. Leaves are very variable in size, shape and hairiness, obovate-oblong, 1-5 cm long, 5-20 mm broad, usually 3-toothed towards the tip, thickish, 3-veined. Flowers are borne in 10-25-flowered racemes, up to 8 cm long in fruit. Flowers are 5-7 mm across, white with purple base or turning mauve or yellowish when dried, sometimes with lilac tinge. Flower-stalks are up to 1 cm long in fruit, ascending or erect. Sepals are 3-3.5 mm long. Petals 5-6 mm long. Siliquae broadly linear to oblong-ovate, 1-3 cm long, 3-4 mm broad, compressed. Afghani Christolea is found in C. Asia, Afghanistan, Himalayas, from Kashmir to Tibet, at altitudes of 3900-4100 m. Flowering: June-July.

Identification credit: Prashant Awale Photographed in Ladakh.

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