星花淫羊藿 xing hua yin yang huo

Herbs, 20-35 cm tall. Rhizome shortly creeping. Leaves basal and cauline, trifoliolate; leaflets adaxially dark green, shiny, ovate, 8-9 × 4-7 cm, leathery, abaxially conspicuously puberulent, base deeply cordate, terminal leaflet with equal rounded lobes, lateral leaflets moderately oblique with outer lobe and inner lobe smaller, acute, margin spinose-serrate, apex acute or shortly acuminate. Flowering stem with 2 trifoliolate opposite leaves, rarely with 1 leaf. Panicle loosely 20-40-flowered, 15-20 cm, with lower peduncles to 3 cm, each 3-flowered. Pedicel 5-15 mm, with numerous glandular hairs; bracteole ca. 2.2 mm, apex shortly acuminate. Outer sepals 4, caducous, unequal, 2.5-3 mm; inner sepals white, lanceolate, ca. 12 × 3 mm, apically acuminate. Petals nearly straight, brown suffuse but orange toward base, much shorter than inner sepals, ca. 2.5 mm, with slight lamina and blunt spur. Stamens conspicuously prolonged, ca. 3.5 mm; filaments yellowish, ca. 1.5 mm; anthers yellow, ca. 2 mm, valved. Pistil ca. 4.5 mm; style ca. 2.5 mm. Fruit unknown. Fl. Apr, fr. unknown.

● Slopes; ca. 900 m. Hubei, Sichuan.