RUBINA AKHTER

An erect shrub with glabrous branches and loose fibrous striping Leaves c. 1 x 0.5 cm, ovate or elliptic, glabrous with short petiole, acute, rounded at the base. Flowers borne in capitate clusters at tips of branches, sessile to sub-sessile. Bracts elliptic, leaf-like. Bracteoles connate, cup-like, almost enclosing fruit at maturity. Calyx lobes minute, triangular, ciliate. Corolla c. 12 mm long bibbed, pilose without, yellow. Stamens 5; filaments hairy, shorter than the corolla lobes. Style hairy below, longer than corolla; ovaries not confluent, glandular. Berries globose, c. 5 mm, with scattered glandular hairs, enclosed by cup-like bracteoles.

Fl. Per.: June-July.

Closest to Lonicera griffithii in the terminal capitate flower heads, but differing in the ± erect habit, smaller leaves, glabrous branches and smaller yellow flowers.