Fabaceae-Caesalpinioideae (Caesalpiniaceae) Week: Bauhinia x blakeana from Delhi

[Gurcharan Singh]

Bauhinea x blakeana Dunn, J. Bot. 46:325. 1908

Common name: Hong Kong orchidtree

A possible hybrid  B. variegata × B. purpurea

Evergreen tree up to 13 m tall, leaves 8-10 cm long, 12-18 cm broad,  cleft 1/4-1/3; flowers 12-15 cm across, fragrant, in long racemes, appearing with leaves; petals broad, overlapping, obovate or elliptic, rose-purple with whitish veins; stamens 5; pod not produced. 

Photographed from Herbal Garden, Punjabi Bagh, New Delhi on December 1

The closely similar species can be separated as under:

B. blakeana                                                    B. purpurea                                       B. variegata

Early flowering, Nov-Dec. in Delhi                      Early flowering Oct-Nov. in Delhi         Late flowering, Feb-March in Delhi

Leaves 12-18 cm across, cleft 1/4-1/3                Leaves 10-15 cm across, cleft 1/2      Leaves 10-15 cm across, cleft 1/3

Fls. in long racemes                                         Fls. in short racemes                        Fls. in short racemes

Flowers 12-15 cm across, appear with leaves     Flowers 10-12 cm across, with leaves  Flowers 10-12 cm across, after leaves fall

Petals broad, overlapping,                                 Petals narrow, non-overlapping            Petals broad, overlapping

Petals rose-purple, veins whitish                        Petals pink, whitish in centre              Petals white with purplish veins, upper darker

Stamens 5                                                      Stamens 3                                         Stamens 5  

Pod not produced                                            Pod 12-25 cm long, 2-2.5 cm thick       Pod 15-25 cm long, 1.5-2 cm thick

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Dr. Gurcharan Singh
Retired  Associate Professor
SGTB Khalsa College, University of Delhi, Delhi-110007
Res: 932 Anand Kunj, Vikas Puri, New Delhi-110018.
Phone: 011-25518297  Mob: 9810359089
http://people.du.ac.in/~singhg45/

[Balkar Singh]

Thanks Sir for Sharing pics and detailed characters of Bauhinea

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Regards

Dr Balkar Singh
Head, Deptt. of Botany and Biotechnology
Arya P G College, Panipat
Haryana-132103
09416262964

[prasad dash]

Great Catch and very very nice and informative details sir Ji.

Regards

prasad

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Prasad Kumar Dash
Ecologist, Orissa, India
email: prasad....@gmail.com
ph. 09437444241

[Madhuri Raut]

Great collection of Bauhinea Gurcharan ji Thanks for sharing

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Regards

Dr.Bhagyashri Ranade

[Satish Phadke]

Gurcharan ji
Thanks for enumerating the clear differences.

On Sun, Dec 4, 2011 at 11:43 PM, Gurcharan Singh <sing...@gmail.com> wrote:

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Dr Satish Phadke