Hedyotis verticillaris

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Hedyotis verticillaris Wall. ex Wight & Arn., Prodr. Fl. Ind. Orient. 1: 409 (1834) (syn: Oldenlandia verticillaris (Wall. ex Wight & Arn.) Kuntze; Pleiocraterium verticillare (Wall. ex Wight & Arn.) Bremek.);
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India (Nilgiri Hills) as per POWO;
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Common name: Whorled Hedyotis 

Acaulescent herbs, root-stock thick, clothed with dried leaf-bases. Leaves in dense, basal rosettes, sessile, to 24 x 4 cm, lanceolate, many nerved from base. Flowers on axillary scapes; scapes shorter than leaves. Calyx lobes 5, linear, 3 mm long, glabrous. Corolla white, tube c. 3 mm, lobes 4, elliptic-acute, to 3.5 mm long, throat woolly. Stamens 4, exserted; style included, bilobed; stigma dilated.
Flowering and fruiting: June-March
Grasslands
South India and Sri Lanka
(Attributions: Dr. N Sasidharan (Dr. B P Pal Fellow), Kerala Forest Research Institute, Peechi as per India Biodiversity Portal)
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Nilgiris: Hedyotis for identification 301112MK02:
Please help me to identify this shrub in a rosette habit. The plant was like green lotus flowering on the open grassland near water streams. After seeing the tetramerous flowers and inter-petiolar stipule, I confirmed this as Rubiaceae. Width of plant was up to 1.5 feet across. Inflorescence was up to 10 cm longer; flower was 0.8 cm across.

Location: Mukruti NP, Nilgiris, TN
Date: 22 Oct 2012
Alt.: 2350 m asl

Very interesting plant! It looks almost like Pleiocraterium verticillare (= Hedyotis verticillaris).
http://commons.wikimedia.org/HedyotisVerticillaris.jpg

 

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