药山紫堇 yao shan zi jin

Herbs, perennial, 12-30 cm tall. Rhizome short, with dense apical leaf rosette. Stems nearly erect or decumbent, ribbed, simple or often with late branches above, with 2-6 scattered leaves. Rosette leaves: petiole 5-8 cm, base vaginate; blade glaucous abaxially, green or glaucous, sometimes with purplish midvein adaxially, broadly ovate, 2-3 × 2-2.5 cm, biternate; primary leaflets petiolulate; ultimate leaflets sessile, irregularly 2-5-divided; lobules obovate to oblanceolate, mucronulate. Cauline leaves like rosette leaves, or slightly broader. Raceme 3-12-flowered, very dense at first, to 8 cm in fruit; lowermost bract like upper leaf but shortly stalked, upper much smaller, divided to often entire. Pedicel 3-4 mm in flower, 9-15 mm in fruit, erect. Sepals 2-3 × ca. 2 mm, deeply lacerate-dentate. Corolla milky white to pale yellow. Outer petals broadly navicular, subacute, without crest; upper petal 13-16 mm; spur cylindric, 7-8 mm; nectary ca. 1/2 as long as spur; lower petal 8-9 mm, broadly saccate along whole length, except for very base where there is often a small gibbosity; inner petals 6-8 mm. Stigma square; marginal simple papillae: median 2 distinct, lateral diffuse; geminate papillae lateral and in basal corners. Capsule obovoid to oblong, 10-13 × ca. 3 mm, 5-15-seeded. Seeds in 2 rows, ca. 1 mm, smooth; caruncle small. Fl. and fr. May-Sep.

Forest understories, shrubs, grasslands, channel sides; 2700-3900 m. ?NW Guizhou, W Sichuan (Jiulong, Kangding), SE Xizang (Cona), N Yunnan (Lijiang, Qiaojia, Zhongdian) [Bhutan].