Lepidagathis keralensis P.V. Madhusoodanan & N.P. Singh

Habit: Herb

Perennial, prostrate, much branched herbs with woody rootstock, attached to hard lateritic soil; stem always glabrous, quadrangular, more or less winged. Leaves opposite, 10 mm x 3 mm, narrowly oblong-lanceolate, acute or blunt-acuminate at apex, dark green with purple margins, rigid, plicate, glabrous, conspicuously nerved. Spikes 1-3, terminal, procumbent, 2 cm long. Flowers sessile, ca 1 cm long; sterile bracts many (5-8), more or less uniform, up to 10 x 4 mm, oblong- lanceolate, densely pubescent, each with a stiff, sharply pointed mucronate spine, persistent. Calyx villous, deeply 5-lobed, lobes unequal, persistent, similar to bracts. Corolla 10 mm long, densely hairy in bud, tube cylindric below, suddenly expanded, 2- lipped, upper lip 2-lobed, erect or reflexed, pink, lower lip 3-lobed, pink with white to yellow palate. Stamens 4, didynamous, up to 6 mm long, sparsely hairy, 2-celled, purple to deep violet in colour. Disc annular. Ovary compressed ovoid, 2 mm long, 2- celled with one ovule in each; style slender, 7-8 mm long, hairy at lower ventral region with glands; stigma capitate, slightly bifid. Fruit a compressed capsule, 6 mm long, glabrous; seeds 2, flat, softly hairy with white aril.

Kerala: Kannur