Strobilanthes kunthiana

Uncommon card · No. 102372

Strobilanthes kunthiana, known as Kurinji or Neelakurinji in Tamil language and Malayalam and Gurige in Kannada, is a shrub of the bear's breeches family (Acanthaceae) that is found in the shola forests of the Western Ghats in Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The purplish blue flower blossoms only once in 12 years, and gave the Nilgiri Mountains range its name as nil (blue) + giri (mountains). Of all long interval bloomers (or plietesials) Strobilanthes kunthiana is the most rigorously demonstrated, with documented bloomings in 1838, 1850, 1862, 1874, 1886, 1898, 1910, 1922, 1934, 1946, 1958, 1970, 1982, 1994, 2006, 2018, and 2030, these have no match to Solar cycles. This plant flowers during September–October. In different parts of the Western Ghats, there are different populations of the same plants which have their own 12 year cycle. Some population bloomed in 1990, 2002 and 2014, putting it on a 2026,2038 cycle.

Read on Wikipedia · Image Suresh Krishna, CC BY-SA 2.0