厚壳紫金龙 hou ke zi jin long

Dicentra grandifoliolata (Merrill) K. R. Stern; D. paucinervia K. R. Stern.

Climbers, herbaceous. Stems thin, sulcate, branched and leafy throughout. Petiole 1-2 cm; leaf blade with 2 opposite leaflets; rachis ending in a thin branched cirrose tendril; primary leaflets unequally compound into (1 or)2-5, ovate, subacute, entire ultimate leaflets, (10-)25-50 × 10-25 mm. Raceme nutant, 1-4 cm, 8-10-flowered; peduncle 6-12 cm; bracts linear, 4-10 mm. Pedicel thin, 5-10 mm in flower, elongating to 20-30 mm in fruit. Sepals broadly lanceolate, 3-4 × 1-1.5 mm, apex acute. Corolla pale yellow, rounded-cordate in profile, 20-25 × 9-11 mm; outer petals saccate; sinus at petiole insertion ca. 2.5 mm deep; dorsal crest of inner petals overtopping petal apex ca. 1 mm; nectary abruptly and irregularly thickened toward apex. Ovary with 50-55 ovules; stigma almost squarish. Capsule 16-20 × 7-10 mm, tipped with style 8-9 mm; valves thick, leathery, dark when dry with prominent midvein; replum persistent, prominent, flat. Seeds numerous (up to 50), slowly released from a mesh of fibrous elaiosomes that initially holds seeds after valves have fallen, 1.5-2 mm with prominent beak, colliculate-echinulate; elaiosome very large (ca. 2 × seed diam.) consisting of long free tubular cells, like a cotton wad. Fl. Feb, fr. Mar and Aug.

Forest understories, secondary forests; 800-2200 m. SE Xizang (Mêdog) [Bhutan, India (Assam, Darjeeling, Sikkim), N Myanmar].