Bosea amherstiana - Himalayan Bosea

Himalayan Bosea is a large, much-branched, straggling shrub up to at least 3.5 m tall, with elongated branches. Stem and branches are hairless, round, yellowish-green to purplish-suffused. Leaves are hairless, broadly ovate to lanceshaped-ovate, pointed to long-pointed, 3-12.5 x 1.5-8 cm, stalk 4-15 mm. ZTiny flowers are borne in spikes in leaf axils or at branch ends. The ones at branch ends are usually panicule-like. Bracts in the lower part of the inflorescence lanceolate, acute, about 1 mm, becoming broader, shorter and blunter above; bracteoles are usually 4, the inner deltoid-suborbicular, obtuse, pale-margined, 0.75-1.25 mm, the outer shorter and smaller. Flowers are hermaphrodite, stalkless, solitary or in few-flowered clusters, very numerous. Tepals are orbicular-oval, 2-2.5 mm, greenish with broad, white margins, with a long central nerve and 2-4 shorter lateral nerves, glabrous. Filaments are slender, about 1.5 times as long as the perianth. Stigmas about 0.5 mm, erect or spreading, stout, style very short; ovary ovoid. Berry is globose, bright red, 4 mm. Seed black, shining, minutely rugulose, broadly kidney-shaed. about 2.5 mm. Himalayan Bosea was named for Countess Amherst, wife of Lord Amherst, Governor of Burma and India in the early 19th century. Himalayan Bosea is found in NW Himalayas, at altitudes of 900-2000 m.