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Yellow-Tube Wishbone Flower
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Yellow-Tube Wishbone Flower
A Native Photo: Paulmathi Vinod
Common name: Yellow-Tube Wishbone Flower
Botanical name: Torenia leucosiphon    Family: Linderniaceae (Lindernia family)
Synonyms: Torenia asiatica var. parviflora

Yellow-Tube Wishbone Flower is an annual diffuse herb, rooting from basal nodes and spreading 50-80 cm. Flowers are two-lipped, tube bright yellow or white, 2.2-2.4 x 0.8-1 cm; upper lip deep blue, 1-1.2 x 1.2-1.4 cm; lower lip pale blue with deep violet margins, 3-lobed, each lobe 6-8 x 1-1.2 cm. Stamens are 4, didynamous; anterior filaments about 1 cm long with 4 mm long violet-blue appendages, style 2-2.2 cm long. Sepal-cup is oblong, 1.8-2 cm x 5-6 mm, 2-lipped, 5-keeled and hairless. Flowers arise singly or in clusters of 2-4 in leaf axils, on flower-stalks up to 6 cm long, 4-edged and deflexed in fruit. Stems are 4-angled, profusely branched, hairless except at slightly hairy nodes, internodes up to 15 cm long. Leaves are simple, opposite, in mutually perpendicular pairs; leaf-stalks up to 2 cm long; blades broadly ovate-triangular, 3-5 x 2-3 cm, hairless, pinnately veined, with flat base, tapering pointed tip and sawtoothed-rounded toothed margins. Fruit is oblong, 1.3-1.5 cm x 1.5-2 mm, enclosed within the hard fibrous sepal-cup. Yellow-Tube Wishbone Flower is found in Western Ghats and Sri Lanka. Flowering: July-December.

Identification credit: Arunraj Kedharam Photographed in Agastyamalai hills, Tamil Nadu.

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