Cleome anomala

This plant is a shrub or small tree native to the Andes of northwestern Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador. It grows in moist places, including the banks of mountain streams and ravines. The loosely branching stems carry alternate leaves on long stalks, each leaf divided into several elongated leaflets with abundant hairs. Upright flower clusters develop at the branch tips, with conspicuous leafy bracts beneath the flowers. Each flower has four pale greenish-white petals and six long, slender stamens that extend well beyond them. The stalked capsules contain numerous seeds and change from green to brown as they mature. Photographed in the Eastern Andes of Colombia.