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Himalayan Sweetspire
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Himalayan Sweetspire
P Native Photo: Amber Srivastava
Common name: Himalayan Sweetspire
Botanical name: Itea nutans    Family: Iteaceae (Sweetspire family)

Himalayan Sweetspire is a small tree with dark-grey bark. Leaves are alternate, 5-15 cm long, 2.5-6 cm broad, ovate or elliptic-oblong, slightly tapering. sharply gland-toothed or rounded toothed, upper surface hairless, lower velvet-hairy. Flowers are greenish white, 2 mm long, borne in fascicles of 2-7, forming velvet-hairy and 10-20 cm long drooping racemes. Sepals are 1 mm long, as long as the calyx tube, linear, pointed, densely velvet-hairy, persistent. Petals are about 2.5 mm long, linear-oblong, erect, tips inflexed. Filaments are 1.5 mm long, subulate. Capsules are 4 mm long, biconical, septicidally 2-valved. Himalayan Sweetspire is found in NW Himalayas, up to 2000 m altitude. Flowering: April-July.

Identification credit: Amber Srivastava Photographed in Sahastradhara, Dehradun, Uttarakhand & Dhansar, Katra, J&K.

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