Brahma Kamal

Brahma Kamal does not look like a typical flower. Each plant is a pale, lantern-like cone of papery bracts, wrapped around a small dark purple flower head, held above a rosette of long, toothed leaves. The bracts act as a kind of greenhouse, shielding the flowers from the cold of high altitude.

The plant is sacred in Uttarakhand. It is the state flower, and it is offered at hill temples such as Badrinath and gathered for the Nanda Devi festivals. That reverence is also a threat: the same plant is taken for ritual and for medicine.

A single, upright, pale green-cream 'bud' of overlapping bracts standing in a rosette of sharply toothed, lance-shaped leaves. The purple flower head sits hidden inside.

It grows on rocky and grassy slopes in the alpine zone, roughly 3,000–4,800 m, flowering in mid-monsoon (July to September). The botanical survey describes many Brahma Kamal on the upper slopes around Hemkund Lake, and trekkers commonly report seeing it along the Hemkund Sahib route.

Brahma Kamal grows higher than most of the valley's flowers. The Botanical Survey of India describes many plants on the upper slopes around Hemkund lake, and that is where trekkers usually see it: on the climb to Hemkund Sahib and around the lake, rather than along the main valley trail.

Look from July to September for pale, lantern-like heads standing among grass and rocks. Once you know the shape they are easy to spot, because nothing else on those slopes looks like a cream-coloured bud the size of a fist.

The Hemkund climb gains about 1,100 m from Ghangaria, so pace yourself and read our altitude guide first. Photograph it from the path. Picking or uprooting it in the national park is illegal, and plants taken for offerings and medicine are the main pressure on it.

See the climb on the interactive trek map (choose Hemkund Sahib), and read Valley of Flowers altitude and altitude sickness before you go.

The thick curved root is applied to bruises and cuts in local medicine, and the plant features in Ayurvedic and Tibetan practice, although scientific testing of its effects is limited. It is gathered, usually on Nandashtami, for offering to the goddess Nanda Devi.

Sources disagree on how threatened it is, with some calling it endangered or critically endangered; we could not confirm an IUCN category. Over-harvest for ritual and medicine, and loss of habitat, are the pressures named. Uttarakhand runs a germplasm conservation programme that includes it.

• A popular legend says it blooms only at night, releasing a sleep-inducing fragrance, and wilts at dawn. Botanical sources describe an ordinary daytime bloom in mid-monsoon, so treat the night-blooming story as folklore.
• Despite a widespread claim, we found no source tying the flower to a specific ritual at Hemkund Sahib; it is a nearby landmark, not a documented part of the shrine's worship.

Listed in the park's botanical checklist, which describes many plants on the upper slopes. iNaturalist has 10 research-grade observations from the valley and Hemkund Sahib area (36 counting the Govindghat–Ghangaria trail).

Listed in the park's botanical checklist or photographed inside the valley.

ValleyOfFlowers.in is an independent guide. This page summarises the park's botanical survey, published research and research-grade observation records, together with trekkers' public reports. Where sources disagree, we say so.

• Wadhwa, Rao & Hajra (1987), Botany of the Valley of Flowers National Park and its Environs, Bulletin of the Botanical Survey of India 29
• Brahma Kamal: an important Himalayan medicinal plant (Semwal et al. 2020, Ethnobotany Research & Applications)
• Saussurea obvallata – Wikipedia
• Brahma Kamal: a flower of legends and lore (Daily Excelsior)
• eFlora of India: Epiphyllum oxypetalum, the night-blooming cactus also called Brahma Kamal