Bluebeard is an attractive, compact, mounding shrub, 1-3 m tall, with bluish-purple blooms, found in subtropical or outer Himalayas from Pakistan to Bhutan, India and Bangladesh. Leaves are lance-shaped to elliptic, acuminate, 4-10 cm long, 1-2.5 cm broad, crenate-serrate, pubescent, shortly petiolate. Flowers are 1.2-1.3 cm across, purple, blue or mauve, sometimes white with bluish tinge. Bracts are 2-2.5 mm long, linear, acute, velvety. Flower-tube is 1-1.2 cm long, limb 5-lobed, upper 4 oblong, nearly equal with rounded apices, lower slightly larger and broader and darker in colour. Long stamens and style protrude out of the flower. Flowering: February-May.