FoI
Heart-Leaf Sida
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Heart-Leaf Sida
ative Photo: Gurcharan Singh
Common name: Heart-Leaf Sida, Flannel weed • Assamese: Bor Sonborial • Bengali: Berela • Hindi: Kharinta, Barial • Kannada: ಚಿತ್ತುಹರಳು Chittuharalu, ಬೆಣ್ಣೆಗರಗ Benne garaga ಹೆತ್ತುತ್ತಿ ಗಿಡ Hettuti-gida • Malayalam: Katturam • Marathi: Bala, Chikana, Tupkaria • Oriya: Bajromuli • Sanskrit: Badiyalaka, Bala, Baladhya • Nepali: बरीयार Bariyar, बलु Balu
Botanical name: Sida cordifolia    Family: Malvaceae (Mallow family)
Synonyms: Sida herbacea, Sida holosericea

Heart-Leaf Sida is an erect, velvety undershrub, 20-120 cm tall. Branches, leaf-stalked and flower-stalks are are velvety mixed with spreading hairs. Leaves have stipules 2-6 mm long, thread-like. Leaf stalk is 0.5-3 cm long, velvety. Heart-Leaf Sida may looks superficially similar to Long-Stalk Sida, but an easy distinction is that the flower-stalks of Heart-Leaf Sida are very short, and those Long-Stalk Sida are very long, as the name suggests. Leaves are 1-4.5 cm long, 0.7-3.5 cm broad, usually ovate, some what round, or lanceshaped, rounded or slightly heart-shaped at base, pointed at the tip, with toothed margins. Leaves are velvety on both surfaces, mixed with simple hairs on the nerves beneath. Flowers arise in leaf axils, singly or paired or more in terminal branches. Flower stalks are 4-7 mm, in fruit up to 2 cm long, jointed near the top. Sepal cup is 5-10 mm long, 5-8 mm across, densely velvety outside and mixed with simple, spreading hairs, fused to the middle, Sepals are triangular, pointed. Petals are yellow, slightly exceeding the sepals, obliquely obovate. Stamen column is about 3 mm long. Fruit is disc-shaped, 5-8 mm across, velvety in the upper half, splitting open.

Identification credit: Gurcharan Singh Photographed in Delhi.

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