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Scarlet Clock Vine
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Scarlet Clock Vine
ative Photo: Thingnam Anne
Common name: Scarlet Clock Vine • Assamese: চংগা লতা Chonga lota • Nepali: रातो काग चुच्चे Raato Kaag Chuchche, सिंगार्ने लहरा SIngaarne Laharaa, कान्से Kaanse • Kannada: ಇಂದ್ರಪುಷ್ಪ Indrapushpa
Botanical name: Thunbergia coccinea    Family: Acanthaceae (Acanthus family)

This is gorgeous vine which is extremely rare in cultivation. The bright red flowers of unusual shape are hanging from the vine in clusters, and look stunning. The intensity of the color seems to depend upon the temperature in which it is blooming. It appears that the orange coloring is more likely in warmer temperatures, and some fading from full sun, while the more intense redish coloring when blooming in cooler conditions. Flowers tube is basally cylindric for 5-6 mm, throat 1.5-1.6 cm; petals nearly round, about 7 mm in diameter. Calyx is about 2 mm, reduced to a minute rim. Leaf-stalks are 2-7 cm, grooved; leaf blade broadly-ovate, ovate, or lanceshaped, 8-15 x 3.5-11 cm, both surfaces velvet-hairy, palmately 3-5-veined, base rounded to heart-shaped, margin wavy or remotely toothed, tip tapering. Flower-racemes arise in leaf-axils or at branch-ends, up to 35 cm, drooping; flower-cluster-stalk 3-4 cm, velvet-hairy; bracts lanceshaped, below velvet-hairy, above hairless; bracteoles oblong, 2.2-2.6 x 1.1-1.5 cm, tip pointed. Scarlet Clock Vine is found in the Himalayas, from Kumaun to Bhutan, Assam, Burma, Indo-China, W. China, at altitudes of 300-2000 m.

Identification credit: Navendu Pagé Photographed in Imphal, Manipur.

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