Kanara Madhu Malati resembles
Malabar Madhu Malati in its
pentamerous flowers with included stamens but differs in its
velvet-hairy stem, long hypanthium and style, ovate bracts and white
petals (vs hairless stem, short hypanthium and style, linear bracts and
deep pink coloured petals as in C. malabaricum). It is a climber, 5-10
m long. Stems are 2-5 mm in diameter, round; bark light brown, peeling
off with maturity. Leaves are nearly opposite to opposite,
elliptic-lanceshaped, 2-13.5 x 1.5-5.5 cm, hairless above, hairy on
nerves beneath. Inflorescence occur at branch-ends in leaf-axils,
spike-like, 5-15-flowered; flower-cluster-stalks 2-10 cm long, round,
fulvous velvet-hairy. Flowers are 5-merous (very rarely 4-merous),
stalkless, 4-4.5 x 2.5-2.8 cm, bracteate; bracts ovate, 3.5-3.8 x
0.7-0.8 mm, fulvous velvet-hairy. Hypanthium is pale green, 3.5-4 cm
long, velvet-hairy, teeth subulate, about 1.8 x 1.2 mm, ciliolate, tip
recurved. Petals are white, rarely tinged pink in the centre, 1.3-1.5 x
0.4-0.5 cm, ovate, hairless above, velvet-hairy beneath along mid vein;
mid vein faint above, prominent below, light green, dividing the petal
into 2 unequal halves. Stamens are 5+5, inserted in the throat of the
calyx tube; filament about 0.5 cm long; anthers about 0.8 x 0.5 mm,
dorsifixed, bicelled, tip protruded. Kanara Madhu Malati is so far
known from Yana Forest, Uttar Kannada District, Karnataka.
Identification credit: Dinesh Valke
Photographed at Yana Rocks, Uttara Kannada.
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The flower labeled Kanara Madhu Malati is ...