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Slender Rotala
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Slender Rotala
ative Photo: Dinesh Valke
Common name: Slender Rotala
Botanical name: Rotala tenuis    Family: Lythraceae (Crape Myrtle family)
Synonyms: Ammania tenuis, Micranthus serpyllifolia, Rotala serpyllifolia

Slender Rotala is an aquatic creeping herb with upper branches erect. Flowering shoot grow up to 25 cm long, and are prominently red. Leaves are linear and deep reddish brown when submerged. The leaves above water are linear to broadly ovate or sometimes round at the base, 0.2-1.5 cm long. Tips are pointed or blunt and the base wedge-shaped. The bracts just below the flowers are green or tinged with red, smaller than the leaves, rarely larger than 4 mm. Pink flowers are borne in dense stalked spikes at the end of branches, up to 3.5 cm long. Sepal cup is tube-like, 2.5-3 mm long, constricted at the top, with 4 triangular sepals. Petals are 4, obovate, somewhat longer than the sepals. Stamens are 4, with anthers not protruding. Capsule is shorter than the sepal tube, 2-valved. Slender Rotala is widespread in central and western India. Flowering: October-January.

Identification credit: Satish Pardeshi Photographed at Yeoor Hills, Sanjay Gandhi National Park, Maharashtra.

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