Bluebeard, Blue Mist Shrub • Hindi: बन बसुती Ban basuti
Verbenaceae (Verbena family)
Bluebeard is an attractive, compact, mounding shrub, 1-3 m tall, with bluish-purple blooms, found in subtropical or outer Himalayas from Pakistan to Bhutan, India and Bangladesh. Leaves are lance-shaped to elliptic, acuminate, 4-10 cm long, 1-2.5 cm broad, crenate-serrate, pubescent, shortly petiolate. Flowers are 1.2-1.3 cm across, purple, blue or mauve, sometimes white with bluish tinge. Bracts are 2-2.5 mm long, linear, acute, velvety. Flower-tube is 1-1.2 cm long, limb 5-lobed, upper 4 oblong, nearly equal with rounded apices, lower slightly larger and broader and darker in colour. Long stamens and style protrude out of the flower. Bluebeard is found in the Himalayas, from Kumaun to Bhutan, at altitudes of 400-2100 m. Flowering: February-May.
