Botanical name: Christisonia rarissima    Family: Orobanchaceae (Broomrape family)

Paling Ghost Flower is a small, erect, parasitic herb, 4-6 cm tall, growing on the roots of Strobilanthes luridus. Roots numerous, wiry, profusely branched, up to 1.5 mm thick, bearing haustoria and numerous adventitious buds. Stem is unbranched, with whorled, lanceshaped bracts. Flowers are borne in 6-flowered racemes. Bracts light yellow, 3 x 1-2 mm; flower-stalks up to 0.5 cm or absent; bracteoles 2, elliptic to inverted-lanceshaped, 3 x 2 mm. Flowers are bright yellow, hairless. Flower tube 2-4 cm long, bright yellow, fading to white towards the tip, inflated above and closely appressed to the ovary below; limb 5-lobed, somewhat two-lipped, petals 0.6-1.0 cm long, rounded and overlapping. Sepal-cup is 1-2 x 0.4-0.8 cm, tubular-bell-shaped, 5-lobed. Stamens are 4, not protruding, didynamous; filaments 2.0-2.5 cm long; anthers white, turning purple at maturity, style 2-2.5 cm long; stigma peltate. Fruit is a pear-shaped capsule, about 0.4 x 0.8 cm, enclosed by the persistent sepal-cup. Seeds are minute, numerous. Paling Ghost Flower is endemic to the southern Western Ghats.

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The flower labeled Paling Ghost Flower is ...