异齿紫堇 yi chi zi jin

Herbs, biennial, tuberous, 10-30 cm tall, glaucous. Tuber 1-1.5 × 0.5-1.5 cm with thin roots in 2-4 fascicles. Stems few, leafy and branched throughout. Petioles long, base with membranous vaginae or auricles; blade pale abaxially, green adaxially, biternate; leaflets shortly petiolulate, entire to ternatisect, deeply and sharply dentate. Raceme very dense, 3-18-flowered, at fruiting very much elongated; lower bract leaflike, 10-25 mm, ternate with sharply dentate leaflets, upper 5-15 mm, simple, laciniate-dentate. Pedicel 3-6 mm, at fruiting much elongating to 10-30(-40) mm (also bracts enlarging). Sepals minute. Flowers pale pink. Outer petals narrow, retuse to slightly emarginate, with small dentate dorsal crest not reaching apex; upper petal 11-13 mm, spur cylindric, ca. 5 mm, slender; nectary ca. 1/3 as long as spur; lower petal near base with small pouch. Stigma slightly emarginate, with 6 marginal simple papillae; geminate papillae lateral (submarginal) and on basal lobes. Capsule obovoid, 9-13 × 3-5 mm, 6-12-seeded; style ca. 1 mm. Seeds very finely reticulate (visible with strong lens), ca. 1.8 mm; caruncle small. Fl. and fr. May.

● Forest margins; 1300-1400 m. S Chongqing (Nanchuan), C and NE Guizhou.

This species is closely related to Corydalis incisa but has capsules shorter and broader and flowers smaller.

Specimens rather widely distributed to herbaria around the world as "Corydalis nanchanensis Z. Y. Liu" (a herbarium name that has never been validly published) belong to C. heterodonta.