Botanical name: Swertia beddomei    Family: Gentianaceae (Gentian family)

Malabar Bluish Swertia is an annual erect herb, up to 2 ft tall. Branchlets are 4-angled and obscurely 4 winged. Leaves are simple, opposite-decussate, stalkless, 1-3 x 0.8-2 cm, ovate-round, blunt at tip, somewhat stem-clasping at base, margins entire, 3-5 ribbed, leathery. Flowers are blue lurid or white, 4-5 mm across, in flat topped corymbs at branch-ends and in leaf-axils. Flower-cluster-stalk is up to 15 cm long; flower-stalk 2.5 cm long. Calyx 4-partite, ovate-oblong or rarely lanceshaped, 4-5 x 1-1.5 mm, prominently 3-5 nerved, blunt or pointed at tip, curled at margins. Petals are 4, elliptic-obovate, 6-7 x 1-3.5 mm, blunt at tip, often inflexed along margins, with a nectary at base; nectaries with fringed margins. Stamens are 4, inserted at base of flower; filaments linear, ribbon-like, 2.8-3.5 mm long, dilated downwards. Ovary 1-celled, ellipsoid, 3.5-4.5 x 1-2 mm; ovules numerous; style short, 0.5-0.8 mm long; stigma bifid, capitate. Fruit is an oblong, stalkless, 2-valved capsule; seeds many, small. Malabar Bluish Swertia is endemic to Southern Western Ghats. Flowering: November-April.

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The flower labeled Malabar Bluish Swertia is ...