Rose

Rose is the Rose

Bell Weed

Common name: Bell Weed, Prostrate Wild Petunia, Black weed • Marathi: Kali dhawani • Tamil: Pottakanchi • Malayalam: Upudali • Telugu: Neelambaram • Gujarati: Kalughavani, Kali Dhraman
Botanical name: Dipteracanthus prostratus Family: Acanthaceae (Ruellia family)
Synonyms: Ruellia prostrata

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Bell Weed is a prostrate perennial herb, with stems often rooting at the nodes. Ovate green leaves, 2-10 cm long, have lower surface conspicuously paler. Leaf stalk is 5-30 mm long. Flowers occur solitary in the leaf axils, each one subtended by oblanceolate to ovate bracts 1.5-2.3 cm long. Sepals 5, linear, 6-10 mm long. Flowers are violet blue to occasionally nearly white, 2.4-3.2 cm long, the petals slightly spreading. Capsules club-shaped, 1.5-2 cm long, densely covered with fine hairs. Flowering: August-September.
Medicinal uses: Believed to be anticancer against the epidermis of the nasopharynx region and slightly hypoglycemic.
Identification credit: Uluberia Botanical Institute

Asian Spider Flower

Common name: Asian spider flower, Yellow spider flower, Cleome, Tickweed, Bagra (Hindi), Hulhul (Urdu), Naivela (Malayalam)நைக்கடுகு Naikkaduku (Tamil), Nayibela (Kannada), Pilitalvani (Gujarati), Kukkavaminta (Telugu), Pivalatilavana (Marathi)
Botanical name: Cleome viscosa/icosandra Family: Capparaceae (caper family)

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Usually tall annual herb, up to a meter high, more or less hairy with glandular and eglandular hairs. Leaves 3-5-foliolate, petiolate; leaflets obovate, elliptic-oblong, very variable in size, often 2-4 cm long, 1.5-2.5 cm broad, middle one largest; petiole up to 5 cm long. Racemes elongated, up to 30 cm long, with corym¬bose flowers at the top and elongated mature fruits below, bracteate. Flowers 10-15 mm across, whitish or yellowish; pedicels 6-20 mm long; bracts foliaceous. Sepals oblong-lanceolate, 3-4 mm long, 1-2 mm wide, glandular-pubescent. Petals 8-15 mm long, 2-4 mm broad, oblong-obovate. Stamens 10-12 (rarely more, up to 20), not exceeding the petals; gynophore absent. Fruit 30-75 mm long, 3-5 mm broad, linear-oblong, erect, obliquely striated, tapering at both ends, glandular-pubescent, slender; style 2-5 mm long; seeds many, 1-1.4 mm in diam., glabrous with longitudinal striations and transverse ridges, dark brown.
Medicinal uses: The leaves are diaphoretic, rubefacient and vesicant. They are used as an external application to wounds and ulcers. The juice of the leaves has been used to relieve earache. The seeds are anthelmintic, carminative, rubefacient and vesicant. The seed contains 0.1% viscosic acid and 0.04% viscosin.
Identification credit: Pravin Kawale & L.P.A. Reddy

Arrow Leaf Pondweed

Common name: Arrow Leaf Pondweed, arrow-leaf monochoria, hastate-leaf pondweed, monochoria • Hindi: लौंकिया Launkia • Bengali: Nukha
Botanical name: Monochoria hastata Family: Pontederiaceae (Pickerel weed family)

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Arrow-leaf Pondweed is an emergent aquatic herb with stems approximately 0.7-1.2 m long. The basal leaves are arrow-shaped. The inflorescence of 25- 60 flowers is in a dense spike 6-9 cm long. The flowers are 13-16 mm long, purple or whitish. One anther is coloured blue, c. 6 mm long, the other 5 anthers are yellow and c. 4 mm long. The seed capsule is 7 mm long, and 5-6 mm diameter. This species occurs in India, Sri Lanka and SE Asia, extending to New Guinea and Australia. Arrow-leaf Pondweed is often grown as an ornamental in water gardens, and the entire plant except its roots is eaten in India. Flowering: March–June.
Medicinal uses: Plant is considered alterative, tonic and cooling. Juice of leaves is applied to boils. Rhizomes are powdered with charcoal and used for scurf.

Photographed in Imphal, Manipur.

Identification credit: Navendu Pagé

Air Plant

Common name: Air Plant, Donkey Ears, Life Plant, Leaf of Life, Resurrection Plant, Canterbury Bells, Cathedral Bells, Mexican Love Plant, Floppers • Hindi: Amar poi अमर पोई • Malayalam: Elamarunna • Tamil: ), Runakkalli • Bengali: Kop pata • Urdu: Zakhmhaiyat ज़ख़्महयात • Manipuri: , মনাহিদাক Manahidak
Botanical name: Kalanchoe pinnata/ Bryophyllum pinnatum Family: Crassulaceae (sedum family)

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Native Hawaiian plant. Easy to grow just from one leaf set on top of moist soil. Very fast growing, drought tolerant small shrub. Tolerates almost any conditions. Spectacular bloomer. Air Plant grows to about 3-6 feet tall. The erect, thick, succulent stems bear large, fleshy leaves, each with 3 or 5 oval leaflets with round-toothed edges. Young plantlets develop along the margins of the mature leaves. The attractive, drooping blooms are borne on large panicles. The flowers have purple or yellowish-white tinged calyxes and reddish corollas. Kalanchoe is a genus of about 125 species of tropical, succulent flowering plants in the Family Crassulaceae, mainly native to the Old World but with a few species in the New World. These plants are cultivated as ornamental houseplants and rock or "cactus" garden plants. They are popular because of their ease of propagation, low water requirements, and wide variety of flower colors typically borne in clusters well above the vegetative growth. The "Air plant" Kalanchoe pinnata is a curiosity because new individuals develop vegetatively at indents along the leaf, usually after the leaf has broken off the plant and is laying on the ground, where the new plant can take root.
Medicinal uses: Bahamians call it Life Leaf or Ploppers. In the Bahamas it is mostly used for Asthma or shortness in breath.