Henckelia speciosa - Showy Henckelia

Showy Henckelia is a perennial herb with stem absent or up to 5 cm, most parts rust-brown hairy. Flowers are borne in 1-6-flowered cymes, carried on flower-cluster-stalk 3.5-16.5 cm. Flowers are blue-purple with yellow in tube, 4.8-6.5 cm, outside sparsely finely velvet-hairy to sparsely hairy, tube narrowly funnel-shaped, 3.5-4.6 x 1.3-1.8 cm; upper lip 1-1.2 cm; lower lip 1.6-1.8 cm. Filaments are about 1.1 cm, pistil about 3.4 cm, ovary about 2.2 cm. Sepal-cup is 1.1-2.5 cm, 5-lobed from above to near middle; tube 5-10 mm; sepals unequal, narrowly triangular, 0.7-1.5 cm x 3-4 mm, margin entire, tip tapering. Bracts are 1 or 2, free, narrowly ovate to oblong, 6-14 x 1-4 mm. Flower-stalks are 0.8-2 cm. Leaves are 4-6, basal or along stem, crowded at tip, alternate; leaf-stalk 1.8-17 cm x 1-3 mm; leaf blade oblique, ovate to nearly round, 5-19 x 3.7-13 cm, herbaceous, above sparsely white velvet-hairy, eglandular, below leaves often purplish, especially along veins, base oblique, heart-shaped to rounded, margin toothed to sawtoothed or rounded toothed, tip tapering to rounded; lateral veins 6-9 on each side of midrib, prominent. Capsule are at 90 degree to flower-cluster-stalk, 7-9 cm. Showy Henckelia is found on rocks in wet valleys, at altitudes of 700-3100 m, in NE India, Yunnan, Myanmar, Thailand, N Vietnam. Flowering: March-September.