淡黄凤仙花 dan huang feng xian hua

Plants annual, 30-40 cm tall, glabrous. Stem erect, simple or shortly branched in upper part, long naked, often swollen in nodes in lower part, with few fibrous roots. Leaves alternate, petiolate; leaf blade pale green abaxially, dark green adaxially, ovate-oblong or elliptic, 5-12 × 3-4 cm, membranous, often with 3 or 4 pairs of stipitate basal glands, both surfaces glabrous, lateral veins 7-9 pairs, curved, midvein ± conspicuous abaxially, base cuneate, margin crenate-serrate, apex acuminate. Inflorescences in upper leaf axils, subumbellate, 3-flowered, sometimes 2-flowered; peduncles conspicuously shorter than petioles, 5-10 mm. Pedicels slightly curved, 7-10 mm, slender, slightly swollen above, bracteate at base; bracts per-sistent, yellow-green, lanceolate, 6-7 × 2-3 mm, membranous, apex falcate-acuminate. Flowers yellow-green, 1.5-2 cm in diam. (not open). Lateral sepals 2, suborbicular, large, ca. 1.8 × 1.2 cm, thinly membranous, apex emarginate, acute, abaxial midvein thickened, narrowly carinate. Lower sepal deep yellow, navicular, ca. 1 cm deep, abruptly narrowed into an incurved spur ca. 1.5 cm; mouth vertical, ca. 1 cm wide, tip acute. Upper petal broadly elliptic, 1.2-1.3 × 1-1.2 cm, abaxial midvein conspicuously thickened, green cristate; lateral united petals not clawed, 8-9 mm, 2-lobed; basal lobes ovate-oblong, small, obtuse; distal lobes orbicular-dolabriform; auricle inflexed, ovate. Filaments linear, ca. 3 mm; anthers ovoid, apex obtuse. Ovary fusiform. Capsule not seen. Fl. May.

● Forests, shaded moist places along canals; 500-700 m. Zhejiang (Suichang).