Cyanotis

Right across the road from the gate of the bungalow which was our home for a couple of days was a bank full of monsoon flowers. The tiny flowers of a Cyanotis caught my eyes immediately. This was a spreading herb, close to the ground, roots sprouting at the nodes. I love these flowers of the genus Cyanotis, all of them the same striking purple blue, all extremely hairy when you look close. This was a flower with three petals, leaves oval shaped and hairy. I tried to take a photo of the hairy stamens bearing bags of pollen. With an extreme close up, I have to really choose which part of the flower I want to focus on. The photo below shows the dense mat of hair. Due to the nature of the stems, the shape of the leaves, and the flowers, it was easy to identify it as the Nilwanti (Cyanotis fasciculata).

I tried to look up more information. Indian sources claim that it is endemic to the Western Ghats. The Kew Gardens web site is less specific; it says the range Eastern Himalayas and Assam, Southern India and Sri Lanka. Has there been a habitat loss? The IUCN red list does not say that it is endangered; in fact it is listed as being of least concern. I’m loath to put down all such discrepancies as being due to climate change. Sometimes discrepancies are just mistakes, so a bit of chasing the literature is called for.