川鄂黄堇 chuan e huang jin

Herbs, perennial, clustered, very glaucous, 15-30 cm tall, with taproot, much branched with condensed internodes. Leaves gray-glaucous, 7-13 cm (rarely to 20 cm); petiole shorter than to equaling limb; blade bipinnate, ovate-lanceolate; primary pinnae 4-7 pairs, shortly petiolulate to subsessile, each with 1 or 2 pairs of sessile slightly divided pinnules; ultimate lobes broadly ovate. Raceme shortly stalked, densely 10-23-flowered, elongating in fruit; bracts lanceolate, pointed, with scarious margin, ca. equal to pedicels. Pedicel 3-6 mm. Flowers golden yellow, keel of outer petals greenish at apex. Sepals early withering, ovate to lanceolate, 3-6 mm, entire to slightly dentate. Outer petals gradually narrowed toward pointed apex that is usually strongly curved outward, without or rarely with a low crest; upper petal 20-22 mm; spur obtuse, ca. 6 mm; nectary ca. 1/2 as long as spur; lower petal 15-16 mm; inner petals 14-15 mm, crest extended beyond apex, claw shorter than limb. Stigma bifid, lobes erect-spreading, each with 2 indistinctly set off papillae. Capsule strongly reflexed, linear, ± arcuate, squarish in cross section, 25-35 × 1.5-2 mm. Seeds in 1 row, shiny, ca. 1 mm, smooth, with broad elaiosome. Fl. and fr. Apr-Sep.

● Rock crevices; ca. 3000 m. W Hubei (Fangxian, Yichang).