Mazus motuoensis - Motuo Mazus

Motuo Mazus (मोतुओ माज़ुस) is a perennial herb, 15-25 cm tall, the whole plant covered with long white soft multicellular hairs. It is named after Motuo County, Xizang, China, where it was recently (2023) discovered. Stems are erect, unbranched. Flowers are borne in racemes at stem top, rising up to 5 cm long, lax, fewer than 5; flower-stalks 4-6 mm, hairless or with a few multicellular hairs. Flowers are 1.2-1.5 cm long, white, but often purple on upper petal, hairless, tube 3-5 mm long, shorter than sepal-cup; limb 2-lipped, upper lip bilobed, slightly upwarp, lobes triangular ovate, tip somewhat pointed, sometimes weakly blunt or retuse; lower lip trilobed, lobes margins uneven-toothed, middle lobe usually rounded, smaller than lateral lobes, yellow palate comprising 2 longitudinal elevations extending from point of filament fusion to the base of lower lobes, with erect club-shaped hairs. Sepal-cup is broadly bell-shaped, about 6 mm long, 5-veined, hairless outside and inside, sepals 5, triangular-lanceshaped, as long as tube, tip pointed, midrib prominent. Stamens are 4, didynamous, filaments thread-like. Ovary about 2 mm long, hairless, ovoid; styles about 7 mm long, included, hairless, protruding beyond anthers, stigma bilobed. Leaves are opposite, numerous, virtually stalkless, lower leaf blade scalelike and small, obovate-oblong, tip blunt, middle and upper leaves with leaf blade elliptic to ovate, papery, 0.8-4.0 x 0.4-1.8 cm, above clothed with multicellular hairs, below nearly hairless, base wedge-shaped, margin sawtoothed, lateral veins 3-5 pairs. Fresh capsule and sepal-cup light green, included by persistent sepal-cup. Motuo Mazus was only known from a small region in China, but now that it has been found in Arunachal Pradesh too, it maybe more widely distributed, at altitudes of 1800-2300 m. Flowering: May-June.