Neelakurinji
| Strobilanthes kunthianus | |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| (unranked): | Angiosperms |
| (unranked): | Eudicots |
| (unranked): | Asterids |
| Order: | Lamiales |
| Family: | Acanthaceae |
| Genus: | Strobilanthes |
| Species: | S. kunthianus |
| Binomial name | |
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Strobilanthes kunthianus (Wall. ex Nees) T. Anders. ex Benth. |
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Kurinji or Neelakurinji (Strobilanthes kunthianus) is a shrub that is found in the shola forests of the Western Ghats in South India. Nilgiri Hills, which literally means the blue mountains, got their name from the purplish blue flowers of Neelakurinji that blossoms only once in 12 years. Of all long interval bloomers (or plietesials) Strobilanthes kunthianus is the most rigorously demonstrated, with documented bloomings in 1838, 1850, 1862, 1874, 1886, 1898, 1910, 1922, 1934, 1946, 1958, 1970 1982, 1994, and 2006 The species is known as ನೀಲಕುರಂಜಿ in Kannada, குறிஞ்சி in Tamil, and നീലകുറിഞ്ഞി in Malayalam.
Some Kurinji flowers bloom once every seven years, and then die. Their seeds subsequently sprout and continue the cycle of life and death.
The Paliyan tribal people living in Tamil nadu used it as a reference to calculate their age.
Kurinji grows at an altitude of 1300 to 2400 metres. The plant is usually 30 to 60 cm high. They can, however, grow well beyond 180 cm under congenial conditions.
The Kurinji plant belongs to the genus Strobilanthes which was first scientifically described by Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck in the 19th century. The genus has around 250 species, of which at least 46 are found in India. Most of these species show an unusual flowering behavior, varying from annual to 16-year blooming cycles.
Blooming periods of different species of Kurinji differ from each other. Plants that bloom at long intervals like Strobilanthes kunthianus are known as plietesials. Other commonly used expressions or terms which apply to part or all of the plietesial life history include gregarious flowering, mast seeding and supra-annual synchronized semelparity (semelparity = monocarpy).
Some species of Strobilanthes are examples of a mass seeding phenomenon termed as masting which can be defined as "synchronous production of seed at long intervals by a population of plants". Strict masting only occurs in species that are monocarpic (or semelparous) -- individuals of the species only reproduce once during their lifetime, then die, as is the case with Strobilanthes kunthianus.
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