A fine South American species I haven’t had the pleasure of seeing myself (yet — my lifelong goal is to see every species of Ruellia in the field. Something like a birding life list, only better). Nice anthocyanin accumulation on the undersides of the leaves. WHAT is the adaptive value of that? Many have debated… None have an answer…

Wild collected, Bolivia, Schmidt-Lebuhn #82 (GOET); Photo by Alexander Schmidt-Lebuhn