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Medog Begonia
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Medog Begonia
P Native Photo: Momang Taram
Common name: Medog Begonia
Botanical name: Begonia medogensis    Family: Begoniaceae (Begonia family)

Medog Begonia is a perennial erect herb, with rhizomes short, stout. Stems are reddish-purple, densely velvet-hairy, 0.3-1.0 m tall, with internode 6-15 cm long. Stem leaves are triangular to lanceshaped, 6.0-8.0 x 1.5-2.5 mm, tip tapering to cuspidate; leaf-stalk 1.2-2.7 cm long, densely velvet-hairy. Leaves are ovate-lanceshaped, slightly asymmetric, 6.0-10.0 x 2.0-3.7 cm, above green, slightly hairy, below greenish-white, venation palmate-pinnate, 5-8-veined, base slightly oblique, rounded to somewhat heart-shaped, margins remotely and irregularly finely toothed, tip with a tail-tapering. Flowers are borne at branch-ends and in leaf-axils, in corymbs up to 6 cm, somewhat drooping, flower-cluster-stalks 2.7-4.0 cm long, secondary 0.5-1.0 cm long, with 1-5 flowers. Floral bracts are lanceshaped to ovate-lanceshaped, 5.0-10.0 x 1.7-5.0 mm. Male flowers have flower-stalk 1-1.5 cm long; tepals 4, white, outer 2 broadly ovate, 1.5-1.7 x 1.2-1.4 cm, tinted with pink, hairless, tip rounded; inner 2 spoon-shaped, 1.1-1.4 cm x 6-8 mm, hairless, tip blunt to rounded; stamens 60-80; filaments free, 0.5-1.2 mm long, almost equal, fused at base into a column. Female flowers have flower-stalk 1.1-2 cm long, tepals 5, white, unequal, hairless, outer 4 broadly ovate, the outmost 2 tinted with pink, 1.2-1.4 x 0.9-1.2 cm, tip rounded, other 2 slightly larger, 1.3-1.5 x 1-1.2 cm, tip blunt to rounded; the inner 1 smallest, spoon-shaped, 8-10 x 7-9 mm, tip rounded. Ovary is hairless, 2-celled. Capsule is somewhat drooping, cylindroid, 5.0-8.0 x 1.5-2.5 mm; wings 3, upper 1 larger, oblong, 7-9 mm broad, tip flat, lateral 2 less developed, 2-3 mm broad. Medog Begoniais found in Medog County, Tibet, China, Myanmar and Arunachal Pradesh, at altitudes of of 600-1400 m. Flowering: October-December.

Identification credit: Momang Taram Photographed in lower Subansiri dist., Arunachal pradesh.

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