Ruellia tuberosa L.

Family: Acanthaceae

Taxonomy:Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Lamiales > Acanthaceae > Ruellia > R. tuberosa

Common name [English]: Popping Pod, Bluebell, Feverroot, Minnie Root

Vernacular name [Malayalam]: നാട്ടുമുക്കുരം

Nativity: Tropical America; naturalised in India and Malesia

Habitat: Wastelands in the plains

Description: Glabrescent herbs, 25-45 cm tall; rootstock with numerous fleshy tubers. Leaves 3.2-8.5 x 1.8-4 cm, elliptic-obovate or obovate-oblong, base cuneate to attenuate, apex obtuse; petiole 1-2.5 cm long. Flowers blue, c. 3 cm long, solitary or in 3-flowered cymes, axillary or terminal; pedicel to 5 mm long; bracts and bracteoles c. 5 mm long, linear. Calyx lobes subequal, 1.2-2 cm long, linear, acute, ciliate. Corolla c. 3.5 cm across; tube c. 3 cm long; lobes subequal, rounded. Stamens 4, included; filaments hairy below; anthers 3-4 mm long, sagittate, puberulous; staminode linear. Style c. 2 mm long; stigma 2-lamellate, flattened, ciliate. Capsule 2-2.7 x 0.3-0.4 cm, linear-oblong, black. Seeds c. 2 mm across, orbicular, flattened, hairy.

Flowering and Fruiting :Throughout the year

Uses : Folk medicine

Cultivation: Wild and Common

References

http://www.plantsoftheworldonline.org

https://indiabiodiversity.org