Black Musale

Subtropical Himalayas in India and Pakistan where it is found in the foothill zone. It is not a common plant in our area.

The rhizomes are used medicinally.

Plants 10-35 cm tall. Root tubers elongated. Leaves radical, lanceolate, plicate, sparsely long ciliate. Scape short, hidden among the leaf bases. Flowers in racemes, subsessile, the upper staminate, lower hermaphrodite, bracteate; bracts lanceolate. Tepals elliptic-oblong, 5-7 mm long, yellow, ciliate. Stamens about half the length of the perianth segments, anther linear. Ovary pubescent, separated from the perianth by a stipe, lanceolate, locules imperfect; ovules 6-8; stigmas 3. Fruit 1-4-seeded, beaked. Seeds oblong, grooved.

Rhizomes erect, subcylindric, ca. 10 × 1 cm. Leaves sessile or shortly petiolate; leaf blade lanceolate to linear, usually 10--45(--90) × 0.5--2.5 cm, laxly pilose or glabrous, base tapering, apex narrowly acuminate. Flowering stems nearly enclosed in base of sheathing petiole, 6--7 cm, pilose; bracts lanceolate, 2.5--5 cm, margin ciliate. Inflorescences umbel-like racemes, 4--6-flowered. Pedicel ca. 2 mm. Perianth yellow; segments oblong-lanceolate, 8--12 × 2.5--3 mm, outer ones sometimes abaxially laxly pilose. Stamens ca. 1/2 as long as perianth segments; filament 1.5--2.5 mm; anther 2--4 mm. Ovary narrowly oblong, to 7.5 mm, pilose. Stigma lobes longer than style. Berry subfusiform, 1.2--1.5 × ca. 0.6 cm; beak ca. 2.5 mm. Fl. and fr. Apr--Sep.

Himalaya (Kashmir to Assam), India, Ceylon, east to Japan, Malaysia, Australia.

Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hunan, Jiangxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Zhejiang [Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Myanmar, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam].

500 m

Fl. Per.: July-August.

Forests, open grassy slopes; near sea level to 1600 m.

Curculigo orchioides var. minor Bentham.