Strobilanthes clarkei - Stalkless Coneflower

Stalkless Coneflower is an undershrub 0.5-1.75m high, with unequally paired leaves. Flowers are glossy violet, hairless, curved, 2.6-3.2 cm long, gradually widened from 1 mm to 9-10 mm at the mouth, lobes rounded, 5 mm long; filaments hairless, the shorter pair 2 mm long, the longer pair 5 mm long. Sepal-cup is 5-6 mm in flower, growing to 8 mm in fruit, divided nearly to the base, sepals equal, oblong or narrowly oblong-elliptic, somewhat pointed. Flowers are borne in small trichotomously branched panicles, in leaf-axils and at branch-ends, 3-13 cm long, usually rather dense when young but becoming laxer later, bearing a pair of small ovate leaflets at the branching point. Bracts are obovate, 3-toothed, 4-5mm long, herbaceous, fugacious; bracteoles similar but inverted-lanceshaped, entire, rounded at the tip, 2.5 mm long. Stems are erect, rounded, hairless. Leaves are very unequal in each pair, ovate, tapering, 1.2-12 x 1.2-6 cm, base broadly wedge-shaped, becoming rounded upwards, sawtoothed, hairless on both surfaces, above dark green and with numerous cystoliths, beneath paler but with prominent veins, shortly stalked; leaf-stalks 0-9 mm long. Capsule is oblong, 9 mm long. Stalkless Coneflower is found in East Himalaya, from Nepal to NE India, at altitudes of 1000-1800 m.