巧家紫堇 qiao jia zi jin

Corydalis mienningensis C. Y. Wu.

Herbs, perennial, 40-60 cm tall, glabrous. Rhizome short, with dense imbricate scales and petiolar bases. Stems 1 or 2, slender, weak, simple, with 15-25 small scattered leaves in upper 1/2-2/3. Basal leaves early withering. Cauline leaves: petiole thin, lowermost to 5 cm, middle and upper 0.5-2 cm, base with membranous slightly erose auricles, each with an axillary easily detached dark bulbil 3-4 mm; blade pruinose abaxially, green adaxially, broadly ovate to orbicular, 0.5-2 × 0.3-3 cm, lower biternate, middle deeply palmatisect; uppermost shallowly ternatisect to entire; lobules oblong or obovate-oblong, rounded to obtuse, sometimes mucronulate. Raceme 2-4 cm, dense, 6-13-flowered; bracts narrowly oblanceolate, 4-8 mm, entire, rarely lowest bract slightly 3-divided. Pedicel 7-12 mm, thin. Sepals rounded, ca. 1 × 1.5 mm, dentate. Petals pale amaranth; upper petal navicular-ovate, 18-20 mm, acute, margin slightly sinuate, dorsal crest very narrow; spur straight, tapering; nectary ca. 2/3 as long as spur; lower petal navicular-spatulate, 11-12 mm, narrowly crested, claw narrow, slightly longer than limb; inner petals 10-11 mm. Ovules many; style ca. 3 mm; stigma didymous, with 6 marginal simple papillae; geminate papillae lateral (submarginal) and on basal lobes. Fruit not seen (rarely produced?). Fl. Jul.

● Wet cliffs, ?clearings; 2800-3700 m. SW Sichuan (Butuo, Mianning), NE Yunnan (Qiaojia).