灰岩紫堇 hui yan zi jin

Corydalis hannae Kanitz; C. souliei Franchet; C. wardii W. W. Smith.

Herbs, perennial, 6-20 cm above surface in alpine scree, to 60 cm tall when growing in bushes, glabrous or papillose-scabrid along margins and veins of bracts; stems and petioles of radical leaves attenuate to filiform underground base. Storage roots numerous, fascicled, oblong, 30-70 × 2-4 mm. Stems few to several, robust to rather slender, sulcate, branched, with 2-4(-6) leaves in aerial part. Radical leaves: blade green to glaucous, triangular to ovate, 3-9 × 2-9 cm, slightly thick, bipinnate; pinnae 2-4 pairs, stalked; ultimate leaflets sessile, entire to usually deeply dissected into ovate to lanceolate, acute-mucronate lobes. Cauline leaves: lower ones stalked, like radical leaves; upper ones sessile, smaller and less divided. Racemes 3-8 cm, usually 10-20-flowered; lower bracts repeatedly palmatisect; upper ones once palmatisect to pectinate-dentate, lobes lanceolate, acuminate; uppermost rarely almost entire. Pedicel 3-7(-15) mm, rigidly recurved in fruit. Sepals 1-1.5 × 1-2 mm, margin dentate to lacerate. Corolla purple, rarely pur-plish slate blue; inner petals usually with contrasting blackish purple apex; upper petal 22-30 mm; dorsal crest very variable, 0.5-2 mm wide, acute to obtuse and overtopping apex; spur usually gracefully downcurved, (12-)14-20 mm, tapering to apex; nectary 5-8 mm; lower petal broadly and shallowly saccate in basal 1/2, 10-12 mm; inner petals 9(-10) mm. Stigma square; marginal papillae: median 2 distinct, lateral broad, indistinct; geminate papillae lateral (submarginal) and on well-developed basal lobes. Capsule elliptic to broadly obovoid, 7-9 × ca. 3 mm, with raised lines of dense papillae, 2-7-seeded; style ca. 4 mm. Seeds smooth, 1.4-1.8 mm with appressed elaiosome. Fl. and fr. Jul-Oct.

● Alpine scree, in shrubs in alpine grazed meadows; 2900-4800 m. SW and W Sichuan, NW Yunnan.

Presumed hybrids (sterile) with Corydalis densispica and C. lathyrophylla have been recorded (NW Yunnan).

Slender plants growing in shrubs in meadows, often at lower elevations (2900-4000 m), are known from WC Sichuan (Xiaojin and Kangding) and have been separated as Corydalis souliei. In cultivation, however, plants from alpine scree look similar, so it is possible that these differences are mainly environmental modifications.

Plants from the northeast have greener leaves and slate blue flowers.

The distinction between Corydalis calcicola and C. trachycarpa is diffuse and here mainly based on the latter having white flowers in early anthesis and usually more divided and fleshier leaves. Corydalis trachycarpa is often more dense and robust and very rarely grows in shrubs.