浪穹紫堇 lang qiong zi jin

Herbs, perennial, 5-20 cm tall, glabrous or papillose-scabrid along margins of leaves; stems and petioles of radical leaves attenuate to filiform underground base. Storage roots fascicled, 10-40 × 1-3 mm, tapering to both ends, with indistinct stalk 5-15 mm; very thin stolons often present. Stems 1-5(-8), erect to ascending, often purplish, simple, with 2(or 3) leaves. Radical leaves 2-5 or more; petiole 2-7 cm; blade glaucous abaxially, dark green to glaucous adaxially, nearly orbicular, 1-2.5(-4) cm, ternate to sub-biternate, with 4-12 rounded to oblong leaflets. Cauline leaves sessile; blade palmately cut to base into 5-7(-11) lanceolate to linear-oblong leaflets 1-2 cm × 1-3 mm, apex obtuse. Raceme 2-3 cm, 4-12-flowered; bracts elliptic to linear-lanceolate, 5-16 mm, entire or rarely lowermost 3-lobed. Pedicel erect, 4-10(-15) mm, rather stout, elongating to 10-20 mm in fruit. Sepals minute. Corolla blue or indigo; tip of upper petal with white marks adaxially; tip of inner petals darker, except for dorsal pale blue crest; outer petals obtuse, undulate, without or with narrow crest to 0.5(-1) mm; upper petal 13-15 mm, apex upwardly reflexed; spur upwardly reflexed, cylindric, 7-10 mm, thick; nectary 1/2-2/3 as long as spur; lower petal 9-10 mm, apex obtuse, claw indistinct, shallowly saccate; inner petals 7-8 mm. Stigma didymous, cleft to 1/3, each 1/2 with 3 distinct marginal papillae; geminate papillae on rounded basal lobes. Capsule obovoid, 7-10 × ca. 3 mm, 4-10-seeded, when mature reflexed from erect pedicel; style ca. 2 mm. Fl. and fr. May-Sep.

● Open stony slopes, wet alpine disturbed meadows, scree; (2700-)3500-4200(-5200) m. SW and WC Sichuan, E Xizang, NW Yunnan.

This is a very variable species: there are forms flowering in spring (NW Yunnan) and forms flowering in late summer (Sichuan), tall slender forms and low-growing forms, and forms with and without thin stolons.