Common name: Midday Flower, Scarlet Mallow, Copper Cups, Florimpia, Noon Flower, Scarlet Pentapetes, Scarlet phoenician • Hindi: दुपहरिया Dupahariya • Marathi: तांबरीदुपारी Tambridupari • Tamil: நாதப்பூ Nagappu • Malayalam: Uchchamalari • Telugu: Makinaccettu • Bengali: কটলতা বন্ধুলী Kat-lata Bandhuli, বন্ধুক Bandhuka • Gujarati: સૌભાગ્યસુંદરી Saubhagyasundari • Sanskrit: मध्यदिन Madhyadina, बंधूक Bandhuka
Botanical name: Pentapetes phoenicea Family: Sterculiaceae (Cacao family)
Midday Flower is an erect, half-woody plant, 0.5-1 m in height. The
branches are long and spreading. Then leaves are alternate, linear, 6-10 cm
in length, toothed at the margins, usually having the broad, pointed base,
and tapering to a pointed tip. Scarlet flowers are borne in the axils of
the leaves with 5 large, deep rose, and show petals. The flowers, 2.5-3.5
cm across, open around noon, and close the following dawn. The fruit is a
5-valved, rounded, hairy capsule, about 1 centimeter in diameter. The
seeds, which are not winged, occur 8-12 in two series in each cell.
Pentapetes is native to a wide region of tropical South Asia from Ceylon
and India to northern Australia and the Philippines.
Flowering: August-November.
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