Ask Mr. Smarty Plants

Well, that is a challenge!

First of all, our focus and expertise are with plants native to North America. You can do a COMBINATION SEARCH in our Native Plant Database and choose 'California' from Select State or Province and 'Purple' from Bloom Color and get a list of over 300 native plants in California that fit that description.  If you NARROW YOUR SEARCH by choosing 'September', 'October' and 'November' from Bloom Time, the number of plants in the list is fewer than 60. Of course, California is a very large state and not all those would grow  near Tahoe. Also, you include a quote from some source that says that this is an import from India.  If it really is a plant that isn't native to North America, it won't appear in our Native Plant Database.  Additionally, if it is a recent import and hasn't naturalized, we likely won't be able to help with its identification either.  However, it might help if we knew the origin and the date of the quote you include.  Is it from a literary source?  Is there more to the description—any mention of size of the plant and whether it grew near the lake or high in the mountains?  It would help us even more if you have a photograph. If you do, please visit our Mr. Smarty Plants' Plant Identification page to read the instructions for submitting your photos for identification. Mr. Smarty Plants loves identifying plants, but I'm afraid you need to furnish us with a little more information for us to do that.