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Himalayan Lysionotus
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Himalayan Lysionotus
P Native Photo: Momang Taram
Common name: Himalayan Lysionotus, Toothed-Leaf Lysionotus • Nyshi: Liitak Huj
Botanical name: Lysionotus serratus    Family: Gesneriaceae (Gloxinia family)
Synonyms: Didymocarpus esquirolii, Hemiboea himalayensis, Lysionotus himalayensis

Himalayan Lysionotus is a subshrub with stems 10-100 cm, hairless. Flowers are purplish to white, 2.5-4.5 cm, outside sparsely finely velvet-hairy, inside sparsely glandular finely velvet-hairy basally; tube slender funnel-shaped, 2.2-3 x 0.8-1 cm; upper lip about 4 mm; lower lip 8-10 mm. Stamens 0.8-1.2 mm. Sepal-cup 5-parted from base; sepals 4-8 x 1.5-4 mm, hairless. Flowers are borne in 3-15-flowered cymes, carried on flower-cluster-stalk 3.5-10 cm long, bracts ovate to round, 3.5-10 x 4-8.5 mm. Flower-stalks are 3-11 mm. Leaf-stalks are 1-16 mm; leaf blade elliptic to lanceshaped, ovate, or obovate, 4-14 x 2-4.8 cm, herbaceous, seldom papery, hairless, base wedge-shaped to rounded, margin toothed to sawtoothed or crenulate, tip tapering to blunt; lateral veins 5-8 on each side of midrib, flat to prominent. Capsules are 7-11 cm. Seed appendages hairlike, 1-1.2 mm. Himalayan Lysionotus grows on the ground, on trees or rocks in forests, streamsides, grassy slopes, valleys from Himalaya to China, at altitudes of 300-2800 m. Flowering: July-September.

Identification credit: Momang Taram Photographed in Papum Pare, Arunachal Pradesh.

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