Purple Sword Flowers

These are undoubtedly the prettiest flowers that I have personally seen in the recent past. Their grace, their colour, their form, in fact, everything about them seems beautiful to me.

 
The only unfortunate thing is that I don’t know their name. And that comes as no big surprise as my knowledge of flowers is next to non-existent. Would really appreciate if someone helped me out in identifying this flower.


These purple flowers seemed to be translucent or should I say transparent and it is this attribute of theirs that allowed them to glow or take upon a brighter look when the sun shone on them.

 
These guys seemed to have some tiny bristles, which was more prominent on their bud form and on the plant shoots. And these again shone brilliantly under the angled sun.

 
I spotted these flowers while walking through the Himalayan Zoological Park near Gangtok in Sikkim. In fact, I saw a whole wide variety of flowers during my walk here. I can hardly remember a time when I have seen so many unique and pretty flower varieties all in a couple of hours.