HARALD RIEDL and YASIN J. NASIR
Naturhistorisches Museum, Botanische Abteilung, Wien, Austria.
and
National Herbarium, Pakistan Agricultural Research Council, Islamabad, Pakistan.
Thalictrum pauciflorum Royle
Perennial, 15-60 cm high. Stem sometimes slightly geniculate, simple or branched, smooth or very distinctly striate, glabrous. Basal and lower stem leaves withering away by flowering time. Middle and upper stem leaves sessile or subsessile, exstipulate, in two longitudional rows, biternate, blade ovate to oblong-ovate, leaflets 5-18 mm long and wide, ovate, obovate or suborbicular. often profoundly trilobate or incised, subsessile or shortly stalked, lobes crenate or dentate, rarely entire, base rounded or obliquely tru ncate, upper surface deep green, lower surface paler with prominent veins, glabrous. Uppermost leaves bract-l ike, reduced in size and degree of partition, bearing mostly I-flowered lateral, divaricate, slender branches with 1 or 2 leaves in their axies. Flowers sometimes terminal, small, whitish. Pedicels 10-25 mm long. Sepals 4, 3-4 x 1 mm, lanceolate. Stamens 8-12, filaments slender, 4-5 nun long, flexuous, anthers yellowish, linear, mucronate. Carpels 5-7, 3 x 2 mm, sessile or subsessile, at maturity semi-obovate with straight ventral and convex dorsal suture, glabrous, with 6 simple or branched lateral ribs, compressed. Style covered by the stigma for its full length, straight, persistent, stigma elongated, hairy.
Two varieties can be distinguished.
