瘦距紫堇 shou ju zi jin

Herbs, perennial, 30-35 cm tall, glabrous; stems and petioles of radical leaves attenuate to filiform underground base. Storage roots fasciculate, fusiform, 20-25 × 2-4 mm, without distinct stalks. Stems 2-4, erect, 30-35 cm, slender, simple, with 2 leaves in upper 1/2. Petiole of radical leaves 3-10 cm; blade glaucous abaxially, green adaxially, 2.5-3.5 × 3-4 cm, ternately divided into subsessile leaflets; lateral leaflets often again deeply bifid; lobes obovate, 1.5-2.5 × 0.5-1 cm, coarsely toothed. Cauline leaves sessile, 2-4 cm, deeply digitately cut into 5-7 narrowly lanceolate acute lobes, entire or with 1 or 2 long acute lateral teeth. Raceme long and lax, 8-10 cm, 8-13-flowered; bracts linear-lanceolate, 8-15 mm, entire or lowest bracts with 1 or 2 long narrow basal lateral teeth or lobes. Pedicel 7-16 mm, reflexed in fruit. Sepals minute (ca. 0.2 × 0.2 mm). Corolla blue; outer petals without crest, rather narrow, subacute; upper petal 17-19 mm; spur slightly curved, 10-11 mm, thin, not or very slightly tapering toward apex; nectary ca. 1/2 as long as spur; inner petals 7-8 mm. Ovary fusiform; style ca. 3 mm; stigma broadly emarginate, marginal papillae 6 (lateral 4 sometimes pairwise confluent); geminate papillae lateral (submarginal) and on well-developed basal lobes.

● Alpine meadows among bushes; ca. 3300 m. NW Yunnan (Zhongdian).