Botanical name: Lasianthus jackianus    Family: Rubiaceae (Coffee family)
Synonyms: Mephitidia jackiana, Nonatelia jackiana

Malabar Wool-Flower is a large shrubs or small trees up to 5 m tall. It is named for John George Jack, 20th century Canadian dendrologist and explorer of North America and Europe. Bark is brown, smooth. Branches are horizontal, branchlets nearly round to compressed, hairy. Leaves are simple, opposite, decussate; stipule triangular, interpetiolar, falling off and leaving scar; leaf-stalk 0.2-0.5 cm long, planoconvex in cross section, hairy. Leaf blade is 5.5-17 x 2-4 cm, narrow elliptic to oblong or inverted-lanceshaped, tip sharply tapering, falling off, base pointed to rounded, margin entire and fringed with hairs, hairy beneath; midrib channeled above; secondary_nerves 7-8 pairs; tertiary_nerves horizontally closely percurrent. Flowers are borne in cymes, in leaf-axils. Flowers are stalkless, white. Drupe is spherical, surmounted with persistent sepals, seeds 4. Malabar Wool-Flower was believed to be endemic to southern Western Ghats - South Sahyadri and Palakkad hills and Wayanad in Central Sahyadri. However, recently it has been found in Arunachal Pradesh too.

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The flower labeled Malabar Wool-Flower is ...