九龙黄堇 jiu long huang jin

Herbs, perennial, 40-65 cm tall, glabrous; stems and petioles of radical leaves attenuate to filiform underground base. Storage roots oblong, simple or rarely branched with thin stalks 3-15 cm. Stems 1 to few, very slender, simple or branched, with 2-4 leaves in upper 1/2. Radical leaves: petiole to 30 cm; blade glaucous abaxially, green adaxially, 5-8 × 5-10 cm, 2-3(-4) × ternate with narrowly obovate to narrowly lanceolate ultimate leaflets, abaxially with raised parallel papillose-scabrid veins. Cauline leaves shortly stalked or sessile, decreasing in size upward, bipinnate, with entire to divided leaflets, otherwise like radical leaves; lobes often dark tipped. Racemes 9-25-flowered, elongate; bracts narrowly lanceolate, tapering toward apex, entire or lower ones often deeply divided, (5-)10-15(-20) mm, abaxially with papillose-scabrid veins. Pedicel thin, 5-10 mm at anthesis, elongating to 10-15 mm and strongly reflexed in fruit. Sepals whitish, 1-1.5 × ca. 1 mm, finely dentate. Corolla yellow, usually with a small brownish mark laterally on crests of inner petals, keel of outer petals darker yellow, veins not distinct; outer petals with rhombic acute limb, crested; upper petal 17-20 mm; crest tapering in both directions, narrowly decurrent on spur; spur straight to slightly sigmoidally curved, cylindric, 11-12 mm; nectary ca. 1/2 as long as spur; lower petal rhombic-acute, ca. 9 mm; inner petals ca. 7 mm. Stigma often dark green, square; marginal papillae: 2 central distinct, lateral broad and indistinct; geminate papillae sublateral and on basal lobes. Capsule oblong, 10-13 × ca. 2 mm, 1-5-seeded; style ca. 3 mm. Seeds slightly elliptic, ca. 2 mm, smooth, with small entire elaiosome. Fl. Jul-Sep, fr. Aug-Nov.

● Under deciduous shrubs and in forests in deep fertile soils; 3500-3800 m. Sichuan (Jiulong, Yanbian).