Mussaenda Sps (Billothi)

Mussaenda Sps (Billothi)

Family : Rubiaceae

Characteristic features:

Habit : Shrubs.

Leaves : petiolate; blades usually elliptic with an acute or acuminate apex, pubescent or less often glabrous; stipules entire to completely bilobed, persistent or caducous

Flowers : usually yellow to red or sometimes white, occasionally sweet-scented, isostylous or heterostylous, borne in terminal panicles ,calyx-tube oblong, turbinate or ovoid; lobes 5, usually subulate, linear, slighdy spathulate or sometimes short and dentate or rounded, persistent or caducous; frequently several lobes on each inflorescence develop into a stalked white, creamy yellow or sometimes red dilated lamina ,corolla-tube cylindrical, narrowly funnel-shaped or abruptly widened to accommodate the anthers, with flattened or fine hairs at the throat and between the anthers; limb 5-lobed, lobes reduplicate in bud, spreading at maturity, often with the centre portion connate, with short hairs and often a star of longer, coloured hairs above, anthers 5, with tips just level with the throat or inserted up to halfway down the tube, linear, connective very shortly acuminate at the apex, attached by very short filaments near the base, ovary 2 (rarely 3–4)-locular; ovules numerous, inserted on fleshy placentas; style slender, sometimes divided into 2 arms; stigma included or occasionally exserted; lobes 2, oblong to fusiform.

Fruit : fleshy, indehiscent, globose, ellipsoid or oblong, sometimes crowned by the persistent calyx-lobes

Seeds : numerous, pale brown to blackish, small, usually flattened, the surface reticulate.

Significance:

• Test tube plant, developed by Dr. Vinitha Cardoza from Dr Küpper's Biotech Unit Laboratory of Applied Biology