湿崖紫堇 shi ya zi jin

Herbs, perennial, ca. 35 cm tall, glabrous. Rhizome 2-5 cm, with dense fleshy scales and few rather thick roots; stems ascending, slender, simple or with a flowering branch from axil of uppermost leaf, with 3 or 4 shortly stalked small leaves along upper 1/2. Radical leaves few; petiole 10-12 cm; blade glaucous abaxially, green adaxially, ternate, ca. 2 × 2-3 cm, with leaflets deeply lobed into obovate segments. Cauline leaves: lowermost sometimes long-stalked, others shortly stalked to subsessile; blade ternate to biternate with obtriangular leaflets with cuneate base, apically crenate-dentate to shallowly lobed into oblong obtuse segments 2-5 mm wide. Raceme short and dense, ca. 10-flowered; bracts broadly spatulate, ca. 5 mm, obtuse, often with a few small lateral teeth. Pedicel 7-10 mm at anthesis, probably erect. Sepals rounded, thin, 2-2.5 × ca. 2 mm, richly dentate. Corolla blue to purplish blue; outer petals very narrowly crested; upper petal ca. 23 mm; spur straight, tapering to a narrow apex, 11-13 mm; nectary thin, ca. 2/3 as long as spur; lower petal 12-13 mm, with a short claw abruptly widened into broad rounded erose-dentate shortly acuminate limb; inner petals ca. 11 mm. Ovary linear, with 11-16 ovules; style ca. 3 mm, conspicuously swollen and flexible where stigma attaches. Fruit unknown. Fl. Jun-Jul.

● Almost vertical very wet cliffs above streams; 1500-1600 m. Sichuan (Emei Shan).