裂柱紫堇 lie zhu zi jin

Herbs, perennial, 8-20 cm tall, glabrous; stems and petioles of radical leaves attenuate to filiform underground base. Storage roots almost linear. Stems 1 or 2, straight, simple, slender, with 1 or 2 leaves in upper 1/3. Radical leaves: petiole 1-10 cm; blade glaucous abaxially, rather dark green adaxially, orbicular, 10-15 mm wide, with 3-5 obovate leaflets. Cauline leaves sessile, cut to base into 3-5 narrowly lanceolate lobes 10-20 mm. Racemes 3-9-flowered; bracts lanceolate, 10-15 mm, entire or lowermost often divided. Pedicel erect, straight, 10-15(-20) mm, thin. Sepals minute. Corolla pale to deep blue, with pinkish purple keel to outer petals, and sometimes with a pinkish suffusion toward spur, sepals, and apex of inner petals (crest excepted), rarely pale blue; upper petal 15-16 mm, narrowly cristate, margin entire to dentate, acute and upcurved at apex; spur 8-9 mm tapering to apex; nectary 1/2-2/3 as long as spur; lower petal with very short claw gradually broadened into a broad rounded acuminate limb to 7 mm wide; inner petals 8-9 mm with very pronounced dorsal crest protruding conspicuously beyond junction of inner petals. Ovary with 14-16 ovules; stigma very deeply cleft, each 1/2 with 4 papillae, of which lowest shows a tendency to be geminate. Fruit unknown. Fl. Jul-Aug.

● Alpine stony meadows, rocky places on limestone; 3500-3900 m. W Sichuan (Maoxian).