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Panicled Dewflower
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Panicled Dewflower
A Native Photo: Anne Thingnam
Common name: Panicled Dewflower • Malayalam: Nelam-pullu
Botanical name: Murdannia semiteres    Family: Commelinaceae (Dayflower family)
Synonyms: Aneilema semiteres, Dichaespermum semiteres, Murdannia paniculata

Panicled Dewflower is an annual, erect herb, 4-10 cm tall. Branchlets are reddish. Leaves are threadlike, narrowly linear, 2-5.5 cm long, folded, smooth. Blue flowers arise in panicles up to 10 cm long. Sepals are 3, free, elliptic to oblong, 2-2.5 x 1-1.3 mm, reddish, hairless, margin entire. Petals are 3, free, obovate, horizontal to reclined, tip tapering, 4-5 x 2.5-3 mm, blue-purple, blue, hairless, margin entire. Stamens are 3, 2-3 mm long, bending outwards. Staminodes are 3, 1.5-2 mm long, filaments basally fused with stamen filaments, antherodes trilobed, one lobe highly reduced, creamy white. Capsule is elliptic, 2-2.5 x 1-1.5 mm, hairless, brown, trilocular. Panicled Dewflower occurs gregariously near permanently moist exposed rocks, and by stream banks, in peninsular India.

Identification credit: Tabish Photographed in Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra.

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