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East-Himalayan Derris
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East-Himalayan Derris
P Native Photo: M. Sawmliana
Common name: East-Himalayan Derris • Mizo: Hulhu
Botanical name: Aganope thyrsiflora    Family: Fabaceae (Pea family)
Synonyms: Derris thyrsiflora, Aganope floribunda, Millettia thyrsiflora

East-Himalayan Derris is a large climber or a climbing shrub, with branchlets hairless or very sparsely hairy. Leaves are 5-9-foliolate; axis 30-45 cm, in­cluding leaf-stalk 8-14 cm; leaflet blades oblong to oblong-lan­ceolate, 10-15 x 3.5-7 cm, subleathery, both surfaces hairless, secondary veins 5-7 on each side of midvein, base rounded, tip shortly tapering to sometimes blunt. Flowers are borne in false panicles in leaf-axils or at branch-ends, narrowly pyramidal, 12-35 cm, compact, brown or reddish hairy; branches numerous, rising up or spreading; branchlet nodes with several close but not fascicled flowers on a short branchlet. Flower-stalks are very short. Flowers are about 8 mm. Sepal-cup is bell-shaped, about 3 mm, very sparsely hairy, tip flat or obscurely deltoid toothed. Flowers are whitish to pur­plish red, 8-10 mm; standard round, with calluses heart-shaped at base, notched at tip. Ovary hairy. Legume oblong, 5-10 × 2.5-3(-4) cm, thin, hairless, with prominent netveined veins; both sutures with a 3-8 mm wide wing. Seeds 1-3 per legume, oblong-kidney-shaped. East-Himalayan Derris is found in East Himalaya to China, and SE Asia, at altitudes of 2000 m. Flowering: May-June.

Identification credit: M. Sawmliana Photographed in Ailawng area, Mizoram.

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