柔弱黄堇 rou ruo huang jin

Herbs, perennial, 50-140 cm tall. Rootstock short, with dense cluster of wiry roots to 20 cm. Stem usually single, erect (rarely diffuse), 4-7 mm in diam. at base, hollow, sharply ridged, leafy throughout, simple below, much branched above. Radical leaves early withering; radical and basal cauline leaves long stalked, progressively smaller and more crowded upward (5-15 leaves on main stem); petiole 4-10 cm (or longer in radical leaves), upper leaves sessile; blade glaucous abaxially, green adaxially, broadly triangular, 8-20 × 10-30 cm (or uppermost leaves 4-5 cm), 3-4 × ternately to pinnately divided with opposite pinnae; ultimate leaflets ovate, ± deeply ternatifid to pinnatifid into broadly to narrowly obovate, mucronate lobes. Racemes several, simple or branched at base, 10-20-flowered, dense at first, soon elongating; bracts linear to oblong, equaling pedicels, entire to slightly lobed or dentate. Pedicel thin, 2-5 mm in flower, in fruit recurved, 5-6 mm. Sepals whitish, rounded, 2-3 mm, margin lacerate. Corolla golden yellow, fragrant; outer petals with broad dentate limb and short dentate crest not reaching apex; upper petal 15-19 mm; spur straight or upcurved, narrowed toward tip, 9-12 mm; nectary 3/4-4/5 as long as spur; lower petal with distinctly set off, ovate, acute to acuminate limb 7-9 × 5-6 mm, claw ca. 3 mm; inner petals 7-9 mm, dorsal crests rounded, slightly overtopping apex, claw much shorter than limb. Stigma with geminate lateral papillae and 4 apical papillae, basal lobes without papillae. Capsule oblong, 9-11 × ca. 2 mm, 5-8-seeded; style 3-3.5 mm. Seeds ca. 1.5 mm, smooth. Fl. Jun-Sep, fr. Jul-Oct.

● Wet slopes in forests, clearings; 3200-4000 m. SE Xizang, NW Yunnan (Dêqên).