FoI
Stinking Bluebeard
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Stinking Bluebeard
ative Photo: Krishan Lal
Common name: Stinking Bluebeard • Nepali: बाघ मुखे Baagh Mukhe, खोसामे घाँस Khosaame Ghaans
Botanical name: Pseudocaryopteris foetida    Family: Verbenaceae (Verbena family)
Synonyms: Caryopteris grata, Caryopteris foetida, Clerodendrum foetidum

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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