Stinking Bluebeard 

Pseudocaryopteris foetida (D.Don)

Stinking Bluebeard is a straggling shrub, often purplish or brownish in color. Leaves are lanceshaped or elliptic,1.5-11.5 cm, 2-3.5 cm broad, toothed to nearly entire, long-pointed, stalked, velvet-hairy. Flowers are born in short clusters in leaf axils, 1.5-2 cm long. Flowers are small, 5-6 mm across, white or purplish. Flower bud 5mm. Bracts are 2-3 mm long, somewhat subulate, pubescent. Sepal tube is 2.5-3.5 mm long, with spreading sepals in fruit, divided half-way down but scarcely enlarged in fruit. Calyx about 5mm. Flower-tube is 3-3.5 mm long, petals 3.5-5 mm long, lower larger. Lower two lobe 5mm. Stamens protrude out 6mm. Carpel 7mm. Capsules are 2.5-4 mm long, nearly spherical, hairless, slightly 4-lobed, red when ripe. Stinking Bluebeard is found in the Himalayas, from Kumaun to Nepal, other parts of India and Pakistan, at altitudes of 1200-2200 m. Flowering: February-May.