青海黄堇 qing hai huang jin

Herbs, perennial, caespitose, low-growing. Rootstock long, apically branched into several stems, clad along underground parts (ca. 10 cm × 3-4 mm) with scaly remnants of old cataphylls or leaves. Aerial part of stems 3-10 cm, much branched from base, with leaves. Petiole of basal leaves ca. 4 cm, flat, base slightly sheath-form; blade oblong, 4-6 × ca. 2.5 cm, bipinnate; primary leaflets 3 or 4 pairs, shortly petiolate to sessile; ultimate leaflets 1 or 2 pairs, sessile, deeply 3- or 4-divided; segments overlapping or imbricate, obovate, (2-)3-5 × (1.5-)2-3 mm, ± mucronate. Lower cauline leaves like basal leaves, upper ones like lower bracts. Racemes corymbose, very dense, 10-20-flowered; bracts 2-4 × ca. 2 cm, with flat petiole, biternately deeply divided; segments spatulate to oblanceolate, 4-8 × 1-3 mm, slightly mucronate. Pedicel erect, 1-3 cm, at fruiting 2-4 cm and apically hooked-curved. Flowers dirty yellow, vertically held. Sepals 1.5-2 mm, deeply 3-divided into linear lobes. Outer petals rather broadly crested, subobtuse; upper petal 21-24 mm; spur straight, slightly downcurved at apex, cylindric, 12-13 mm; nectary ca. 2/3 as long as spur; inner petals 9-10 mm. Stigma like that of Corydalis hendersonii, but base with downward-pointing lobes tipped with papillae. Capsule ovoid, ca. 10 × 3-4 mm, descending-curved from fruit neck apex and buried in bract; style ca. 3 mm.

● Alpine steppe, gravel, and sands; 4400-4900 m. W Qinghai (Golmud, Hoh Xil, Qumar Heyan).