FoI
Bracted Heliotrope
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Bracted Heliotrope
A Native Photo: P.S. Sivaprasad
Common name: Bracted Heliotrope
Botanical name: Heliotropium bracteatum    Family: Boraginaceae (Forget-me-not family)
Synonyms: Heliotropium laxiflorum, Heliotropium zeylanicum Wall.

Bracted Heliotrope is an erect herb, upto 50 cm tall, with branchlets velvet-hairy. Leaves are 3-4 x 0.5 cm, linear-lanceshaped, tip pointed, base wedge-shaped, margin curled; leaf-stalk to 4 mm. Flowers are bonre in cymes at branch-ends. Flowers are white, sepals 5, 2.5 mm, ovate-obovate; flower 2.5 mm across, flat-faced, petals up to 1.5 mm, broadly ovate; stamens 5, anthers to 1 mm, ovate-heart-shaped, ovary spherical. Drupes are 2 mm across, 4-lobed, hairy; seeds spherical. Bracted Heliotrope is found in India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Australia. Flowering: July-December.

Identification credit: P.S. Sivaprasad Photographed in Nilambur, Distt. Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu.

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