#serrations

 Leatherman Charge TTI.

This species of beach herb with deeply indented, serrated-lobed, pale greenish-blue leaves is not at all uncommon on the seashores of Visakhapatnam, for I have spotted it on three separate beaches - Yarada, Thatlakonda, and here on Sagar Nagar Beach.

It is a remarkably strange looking herb both in its prostrate habitus - leaves literally lying horizontal on the ground - and in the striking zig-zag borders of its elongated leaves - once seen never forgotten, unlike so many plant species here and in the hinterland whose leaves are so amorphously similar to each other as to render them essentially invisible and indistinguishable..

The physiologic function of that bizarrely beautiful border serration - lobed-like - is unclear. Serrated borders are the hallmarks of plant and tree species that inhabit cold temperate latitudes, tropical species usually having smooth borders. So this species is an oddity right at the outset. A hypothesis - tenuous at best - exists that this feature aids in transpiration and photosynthesis although I find this explanation unconvincing, as anyone who spends a moment in reflection will likewise find. It is better for us to be frank and simply say we don’t know, this one more case of a seemingly simple morphological phenomenon that defies easy explanation.

The prostrate habitus while striking is not unusual. Many other unrelated species such as the Spurge and Euphorbia prostrata exhibit this trait, although once again coming up with an adequate explanation for the physiologic advantages of this prostrate proneness is difficult. Sand temperatures in Summer on the exposed coastline reach such sky-high levels that one marvels that the direct and total contact of the leaf with the sand does not burn it.