膜苞凤仙花 mo bao feng xian hua

Plants annual, 25-50 cm tall. Stem erect, slender, branched or simple, glabrous. Leaves alternate, petiolate; leaf blade ovate or ovate-lanceolate, 2.5-8 × 1.5-3.5 cm, membranous, setose between teeth, base cuneate, margin coarsely crenate, apex acuminate. Inflorescences in upper leaf axils or terminal, racemose, 8-13-flowered; peduncles conspicuously overtopping leaves, slender. Pedicels 1.5-2 cm, slender; bracts caducous, ovate or broadly ovate, 4-5 mm, membranous, 5-7-veined, apex retuse, long mucronulate or cuspidate. Flowers purple, ca. 2 cm. Lateral sepals 2, ovate, 5-6 mm, long mucronulate. Lower sepal purple spotted, narrowly funnelform, narrowed into an involute, curved, long spur; mouth oblique, tip cornute, ca. 4 mm. Upper petal orbicular, ca. 6 mm in diam., abaxial midvein carinate, apex mucronulate; lateral united petals not clawed, 2-lobed; basal lobes subovate; distal lobes narrowly lorate. Anthers obtuse. Capsule linear, to 2 cm. Fl. Aug.

● Forest margins along roadsides; 2100-2300 m. SE Xizang (Mêdog).