Aeschynanthus bracteatus - Bracted Blushwort

Bracted Blushwort is a perennial herb with stems 25-150 cm, hairless, dwelling on trees and rocks. Flowers are red to pink or purple, 3.2-4.2 cm, hairless, mouth strongly oblique; limb indistinctly 2-lipped; upper lip erect, 6-8 mm; lower lip reflexed, 6-8 mm. Stamens protrude out, filaments about 2.5 cm; anthers coherent in pairs at tip, 1.8-2.5 mm. Pistil is about 2.8 cm. Sepal-cup is red, 5-parted from base; sepals linear to lanceshaped, 1.2-1.9 cm x 2-4 mm, outside hairless. Bracts are usually persistent, red to purple, lanceshaped to ovate, 1.5-3 x 0.6-1.4 cm. Flower-stalks are 0.6-1.2 cm, hairless. Flowers are borne in cymes in leaf-axils or at branch-ends, 2-7-flowered, carried on flower-cluster-stalks 3-7 cm. Leaves are opposite, leaf-stalk 0.5-2 cm, leaf blade broadly lanceshaped to elliptic, ovate, or obovate, 4.4-13 x 1.5-6.1 cm, leathery to papery, hairless, base wedge-shaped to rounded or somewhat heart-shaped, margin entire to shallowly toothed, frequently wavy, sometimes curled, tip with a tail to tapering; lateral veins indistinct. Capsule is 7-21 cm long. Bracted Blushwort is found growing on trees in forested valleys and on streamside cliffs, at altitudes of 900-3200 m, in Yunnan, Bhutan, NE India, Myanmar. Flowering: June-October.