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Spider Dew-Grass
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Spider Dew-Grass
ative Photo: Vinaya Kumar
Common name: Spider Dew-Grass, Grass of the Dew
Botanical name: Cyanotis arachnoidea    Family: Commelinaceae (Dayflower family)
Synonyms: Cyanotis bodinieri

Spider Dew-Grass plant has furry violet blooms, dotted with yellow stamens. It is a perennial her with fibrous roots. Main stem is undeveloped, short. Fertile stems arise from below the leaf rosette, diffuse, creeping, 20-80 cm. Leaves are in a basal rosette and cauline. Rosulate leaf blade linear, 8-35 × 0.5-1.5 cm; cauline leaf blade on fertile stems much shorter, to 7 cm, abaxially rather densely arachnoid. Flowers arise in often several, both terminal and axillary heads, stalkless or on a stalk up to 4 cm. Bracts are 7-8 mm. Sepals are fused at base, linear-lanceshaped, about 5 mm, webby on the underside. Petals are blue-purple, blue, or white, about 6 mm. Filaments are blue, cobweb-like. Capsules are broadly oblong, trigonous, about 2.5 mm, densely hairy at the tip. Flowering: June-September.
Medicinal uses: Spider Dew-Grass was used to cure the rheumatic infections in the China Imperial. The roots are used as medicine for stimulating blood circulation, as a muscle and joint relaxant, and for relieving rheumatoid arthritis.

Identification credit: Vinaya Kumar, Mayur Nandikar Photographed in Kerala.

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