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Rough Diamond Flower
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Rough Diamond Flower
A Native Photo: Siddarth Machado
Common name: Rough Diamond Flower
Botanical name: Kohautia aspera    Family: Rubiaceae (Coffee family)
Synonyms: Oldenlandia aspera, Hedyotis aspera

Rough Diamond Flower is a small, annual, 12-60 cm tall herb. The whole plant is rough, internodes 3-8 cm long, uppermost elongated, 10-12 cm long. Leaves are fascicled, 2-4 cm x 2-4 mm, linear, pointed, margin curled, minutely rough, hairless above, hairless-papillose beneath, midrib prominent; stipules triangular with 2-3 thread-like-subulate appendages, 0.5-1.5 mm long. Inflorescence basally trichotomous, or dichasial or monochasial cyme. Flowers are stalkless. Calyx-tube about 0.8 mm long, teeth triangular, pointed, about 0.5-0.7 mm long, hairless. Flower are white or light blue, tube 2-2.5 (-3) mm long, narrow part 0.8-1 mm long and 0.6-0.8 mm wide, limb 0.8-1 mm long, subpointed. Capsule rough, spherical, didymous, 3-4 mm in diameter. Seeds glutinose. Rough Diamond Flower is found in Paleotropics. Flowering: November-March.

Identification credit: Siddarth Machado Photographed in Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve, Tamil Nadu.

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