Perennial prickly herbs, 30-120 cm tall, with thick fusiform root stock and simple leafy ridged stem. Radical leaves caducous, cauline leaves alternate, linear-oblong to oblong, obtuse, shallowly dissected with narrowed base, green above, glaucous beneath, 10-18 cm long, 3-5 cm broad; upper leaves gradually becoming smaller and sessile; petiole of the lower leaves 3-6.5 cm long. Flowers in raceme-like cymes, arranged in basipetal succession, 5-6 cm in diam., bracteate except the uppermost; bracts foliaceous, sessile, lanceolate-oblong, 1.5-4 cm long, 5-7 mm broad, with wavy margin; pedicel 3-7 cm long, prickly. Sepals 2, ovate, c. 1.6 cm long, 1.8 cm broad, prickly outside. Petals 4, blue, broadly ovate, sometimes slightly cuspidate, 3.5-3.8 cm long, 3-3.3 cm broad. Stamens mul¬tiseriate; filaments filiform, 7-8 mm long, glabrous, deep blue; anthers dithecous, basifixed, 1.5-2 mm long, oblong, yellow or pale orange. Ovary 1-1.5 (-1.8) cm long, ovoid, prickly, 4-6 mm broad; style glabrous, c. 3 mm long; stigma globose capitate with 4, oblong, radiating united rays. Capsule obconic, prickly, 2.5-3 (-3.5) cm long (including persistent stigma and style), 6-10 mm broad; seeds numerous, obovate to plano-convex, 1-1.5 mm long.

Type: Northern Kashmir, Falconer (K); syntype: seeds collected by Appleton and cultivated at Kew (K).

Distribution: Endemic to Kashmir.