Common name: Mysore Clock Vine, Dolls shoes, Brick and butter vine • Kannada: ಕಾಮನಬಿಲ್ಲು ಬಲ್ಲೀ Kamanabillu balli
Botanical name: Thunbergia mysorensis Family: Acanthaceae (Barleria family) Synonyms: Hexacentris mysorensis
Which flowering vine is the most beautiful of all? A great number of growers
from around the world have chosen this one, and rightly so. In flower almost
every day of the year, a mature vine bears hundreds of 3" yellow and
rust red flowers in spectacularly long hanging chains. Mysore Clock Vine,
is a woody-stemmed, evergreen climbing flowering plant, native to India.
The name, mysorensis is derived from the city of Mysore.
The vine often reaches 20 feet (6 metres). Oppositely arranged ovate-lancelike
leaves are 5-6 inches long, and handsome dark glossy green. Flowers are large,
in long pendulous interrupted racemes. The plant is more delicate in
appearance than its blue flowered cousins. The plant is a popular
garden item because of its attractiveness to hummingbirds.
This vine is shy of seeiding and has to be propagated by layering. Flowers
in the cold season.
| Photographed in Bangalore. |
|