Sunday, April 4, 2010

Red Kundo

Common name: Red Kundo, Ear-leaf Jasmine, Kundo anangba (Manipuri)

Botanical name: Jasminum elongatum

A rare jasmine with beautiful rose-tinged white flowers - it is mainly found in Manipur and Sikkim, but i took this shot in Assam(Sonitpur,Helem). Red Kundo is a shrub having a tendency to climb. Branchlets are hairy and slender. Leaves opposite, simple, ovate-lanceolate, acuminate, up to 5 cm long, hairy on the nerves beneath, somewhat wavys - leafstalk is short.

It bears beautiful star shaped flowers, snow white in color, with pink on the underside of the petals. Because of this pink underside, the buds appear completely pinkish red.


Flowers scentless, occuring 6-10 in terminal flat-topped clusters. The green covering of the flower is hairy. Petals are white, tinged with red on the underside, flower tube 1.5 cm long, lobes half the length of the tube or less, acute. The flowers and the plant have a strong resemblance to those of star jasmine (Jasminum multiflorum) - infact, in Manipur the two flowers are known by the same name, Kundo. Berry simple or didymous, globose, 6 mm in diameter, black when ripe, surrounded by suberect subulate calyx teeth.

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