Didymophysa fedtschenkoana Illustration Credit: Shaukat & Azmat

Perennial procumbent herbs, with short, glabrous branches. Leaves small simple, obovate-cuneate, entire or lobed above, sessile, fleshy, glabrous, with rounded apex. Racemes short, corymbose, ebracteate. Flowers small, white or lilac; pedicel short, not thickened in fruit, spreading. Sepals oblique, erect, not saccate; margin membranous. Petals about twice as long as the sepals, spathulate with rounded apex. Stamens 6; filaments simple; anthers short ovate, obtuse. Lateral nectar glands in pairs, each semi-lunar with a similar emitting process; middle absent. Ovary ± orbicular, bilocular with 2 ovules in each locule; style distinct, about half as long as the ovary, with capitate bilobed stigma. Siliculae inflated (balloon-like), bilobed, bilocular, dehiscent; valves membranous globose glabrous; septum narrowly elliptic, hyaline; seed 2 or 1 in each locule, ellipsoid, blackish brown; radicle accumbent.

2 or 3 species in high alpine regions of C. and S.W. Asia and N.W.Himalaya; only I recorded from Pakistan.

Lower Taxon

• Didymophysa fedtschenkoana Regel