Stinking Bluebeard is a straggling or rambling
shrub, often purplish or brownish in color. Leaves are lanceshaped or
elliptic, 4-10 cm long, 2-3.5 cm broad, toothed to nearly entire,
long-pointed, stalked, velvet-hairy. Flowers are born in short clusters
in leaf axils, 1.5-2 cm long. Flowers are small, 5-6 mm across, white
or purplish. Bracts are 2-3 mm long, somewhat subulate, pubescent.
Sepal tube is 2.5-3.5 mm long, with spreading sepals in fruit, divided
half-way down but scarcely enlarged in fruit. Flower-tube is 3-3.5 mm
long, petals 3.5-5 mm long, lower larger. Stamens protrude out.
Capsules are 2.5-4 mm long, nearly spherical, hairless, slightly
4-lobed, red when ripe. Stinking Bluebeard is found in the Himalayas,
from Kumaun to Nepal, other parts of India and Pakistan, at altitudes
of 1200-2200 m.
Flowering: February-May.
Identification credit: Krishan Lal
Photographed in Sirmaur Distt, Himachal Pradesh.
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The flower labeled Stinking Bluebeard is ...