Globba wardii - Violet Swan Flower

Violet Swan Flower is an endangered herb with leafy shoots slender, about 30-40 cm high bearing about 4-7 leaves. Flowers are borne in branch-end thyrse or lax raceme, 4.5-8 cm, straight, flower-cluster-stalk slender. Bracts are prominent, violet colored, many, overlapping, persistent, 1.5 x 0.5 cm, elliptic-tapering, upper bracts subtend cincinni of 5 violet flowers, elongate. Flower tube is slender, much longer than the sepals, 1.6-2 cm long, about 1 mm broad, concave, petals 3, ovate or oblong, unequal, reddish-purple, much protruding and separated upward, lateral segments elongate, shortly triangular, 4-5 x 3-4 mm, dorsal segments boat-shaped, 5-6 mm long. Lateral staminodes are petal-like, 6-7 mm long, 3 mm above filament base, pale reddish-purple or golden yellow. Lip is reflexed, adnate to filament to form a slender tube above lateral staminodes and flower lobes, about 1 cm long. Filament is 1.5-2 cm long, curved, pale orange. Anthers are purple, 3 x 1.9 mm. Sepal-cup is bell-shaped, hairless, 1 cm long, tip sub-equally tri-lobed (2 x 3 mm). Leaves are prominent towards upper side, stalkless, hairless, multicostate, strap-shaped; blade stalkless 6-12 x 2-4.2 cm, heart-shaped, tapering, tip apiculate, base eared, upper surface hairless, lower surface minutely velvet-hairy, margins scabrous. Violet Swan Flower is found in Mizoram and Myanmar. Flowering: June-August.