石隙紫堇 shi xi zi jin

Herbs, perennial, clustered, glaucous, 10-18 cm tall, glabrous. Rootstock elongate, ca. 8 × 1-1.5 cm, stout, covered throughout with residues of petiolar bases, apex with 2-5 stems and many basal leaves. Stems simple, naked or with 1 (rarely 2) leaves. Radical leaves ca. as long as stems; petiole 10-15 cm; blade glaucous on both surfaces, paler abaxially, 3-6 × 3-6 cm, ternate (rarely simple); leaflets petiolulate, broadly ovate, 2.5-3 × 3-3.5 cm, trifid to 1/3-2/3, leaflets again shallowly lobed; ultimate lobes rounded-obtuse; lateral leaflets smaller, subsessile. Racemes dense at first, much elongating in fruit, 4-11-flowered; bracts spatulate, lower 20-30 × 5-10 mm, entire, upper smaller and narrower. Pedicel suberect, slender, 10-15(-20) mm in flower, in fruit elongating considerably to 25-50 mm, becoming slightly thicker and irregularly curved, possibly geocarpic. Flowers indigo. Sepals broadly ovate, ca. 3 × 3 mm, finely dentate. Upper petal ca. 2 cm, acute, without crest; spur cylindric, 9-10 mm; nectary 4-5 mm; lower petal with broad indistinct claw and short subacute limb; inner petals ca. 11 mm, claw ca. as long as limb. Ovules ca. 16; stigma square, with 4 apical papillae and didymous lateral and basal papillae. Capsule (immature) oblong, ca. 10 × 3 mm, probably not explosively dehiscent; style 3-4 mm. Seeds in 2 rows.

● Limestone cliffs near river; ca. 2800 m. C Yunnan (Jingdong: above Gongpinghe).

This is a very peculiar, taxonomically isolated species known only from the type gathering.