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Crested Philippine violet

Barleria cristata

Also called Philippine violet, Bluebell, Bluebell Barleria

Crested Philippine violet
Photo: J.M.Garg, CC BY-SA 4.0

Barleria cristata is a shrub of the Acanthus family, grown in gardens and villages across tropical Asia, and is a species rather than a genus. It likes sun and well-drained soil in a warm, seasonally dry climate.

Family
Acanthaceae (Acanthus family)
Grows as
Shrub
Light
Full sun, Part shade
Water
Water deeply, then let the top of the soil dry out before watering again.
Soil
Well-drained garden soil or sandy loam.
Temperature
18–32 °C; protect below 10 °C
How easy
Easy
Native range
Trop. & Subtrop. Asia
Climate
seasonally dry tropical

About

Barleria cristata, the Philippine violet, bluebell barleria or crested Philippine violet, is a plant species in the family Acanthaceae.

Where it grows

It is native to a wide area ranging from Southern China to India, Pakistan and Myanmar.

Uses

Known as อังกาบ, this plant is used in Thailand as a traditional herbal remedy. It allegedly acts as a tonic, diuretic and blood purifier. To ensure intake of this plant, for medicinal purposes, is safe and nontoxic, studies were conducted on mice and found no side effects or death with fixed amount of dosage: 250g/kg dosage.

Other Barleria plants

Hophead Philippine violet · Blue Bushviolet · Coral Creeper

[Contains information from Leaf Area Index (LAI) and Heritage Trees from data.gov.sg (National Parks Board), made available under the terms of the Singapore Open Data Licence version 1.0]

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Barleria cristata by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.

The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.

Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.

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