Canscora stricta - Erect Canscora

Erect Canscora is an erect, annual, hairless herb, 8.5-30 cm tall. Stems are 4-angled, winged (wings about 0.25 mm wide broad); branches prominent, monochasial. Leaves are stalkless; blades ovate-pointed, gradually reduced in the inflorescence to bracts, 10-14 x 3-4 mm. Flowers are borne in dense cymes, divaricately branched, spikelike, 10-100 stalkless flowers per plant; bracts green, linear-lanceshaped, 3-8 x 0.25-0.4 mm. Sepal-cup is green; sepalsr 4, subulate to narrowly lance-tapering, 4-7 x 0.5-2 mm. Flowers are rose or white, brown and green striped at the throat, pinwheel shaped; tube 3.5-5 x 0.5-2 mm; petals 4 or 5, ovate-oblong, 4-6 x 0.5-2 mm, rounded or blunt at tip Stamens 4; filaments 2-3 mm long; anthers orange yellow, linear-oblong before anthesis and slightly recurved after anthesis, 0.5-3 mm long. Ovary ovate-oblong, 3.5-4 x 1-1.6 mm; style pale rose, 3-4 mm long. Capsule is elliptic-oblong, 3.5-4.5 x 1-1.7 mm, 20-25-seeded. Erect Canscora is endemic to South India. Flowering: August-February.