• Family : RUBIACEAE
  (Madder Or Coffee Family)
• Family (Hindi name) : COFFEE FAMILY (कॉफी फैमिली)
• Family (as per The APG System III) : RUBIACEAE
• Species Name (as per The Plant List) : Mussaenda hirsutissima (Hook.f.) Hutch. ex Gamble
• Vernacular name : Karunthagiri, Karunthagari (Tamil); Chandrakala, Sooryakala (Malayalam)
• Habit : Shrub
• Habitat : Evergreen and shola forests
• Comments / notes : On hills to 1600m,shola border and on exposed slopes.
• Key identification features : Scandent shrubs with dense hispid white branchlets; Leaves broadly elliptic, hispid; Flowers in terminal congested cymes; Calyx lobed, clawed; Corolla lobed, elongated.
• Flower, Fruit : Throughout the year
• Collection Nos : CS 14, CS 4350
• Distribution :
  • Karnataka : Kodagu (Coorg) district
  • Kerala : Kozhikode district, Palakkad district, Idukki district, Thiruvananthapuram district
  • Tamil Nadu : Sirumalai Hills (Dindigul district), Kolli Hills (Namakkal district), Shavarai Hills (Salem district)
• Native : India
• Endemism : Peninsular India
• World Distribution : India
• Conservation Status : Not Evaluated (NE)
• Literature : Keshava Murthy & Yoganarasimhan, 1990 - Flora of Coorg district, Karnataka state; Pullaiah et al., 2007 - Flora of Eastern Ghats Vol. 3; Sankar,R.V., R. Kottaimuthu & K. Ravikumar (2009). Additions to the flora of Sirumalai Hills, Eastern Ghats, India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 1(7): 379-381.; Matthew, K.M., Flora of Tamil Nadu Carnatic, Vol.3 (1). Diocesan Press, Madras. 1983; Sasidharan, N. 2011. Flowering plants of Kerala. DVD, V 2, KFRI.
• Citation : Sankara Rao, K., Raja K Swamy, Deepak Kumar, Arun Singh R. and K. Gopalakrishna Bhat (2019). Flora of Peninsular India. http://peninsula.ces.iisc.ac.in/plants.php?name=Mussaenda hirsutissima. Downloaded on 21 November 2024.

Botanical Description

Herbarium Specimen(s)