YASIN J. NASIR

Perennial, 45 cm or more tall. Rhizome slender, vertical. Stem 1-2(-3), ascending, diffuse, slender, glandular villous. Cauline leaves 5-7-angled, 1.5-4 x 3-7 cm broad; reniform, palmatipartite, pilose; segments rhomboid-cuneate, upper half 3-lobed; terminal lobes 3-fid, acutish or obtuse; petiole appressed pubescent or patent hairy. Stipules (1.5-2.5-) 4.5-6 mm long, ovate acuminate, some 2-partite or-fid, pubescent. Peduncles up to 10 cm long, glandular, 2-flowered. Pedicel spreading, glandular, pubescent, deflexed in fruit. Bract 5-6.5 mm long, Subulate-lanceolate, glandular. Sepals 7-10 mm, ovate, lanceolate, glandular-pubescent; awn 0.8-1.5 mm; petals pink-purple, 1-1.4 cm long, obovate, ciliate. Filaments about the size of sepals, dilated part long ciliate, pubescent. Beak 20 mm long, patent glandular. Mericarps c. 4 mm long, glandular hairy. Seed minutely reticulate.

Fl. Per.: June-August.

Type: Swat: Utror, c. 2500 m, K.H. Rechinger 19566 (W).

Distribution: Upper Swat, Gilgit (Astor area).

In habit this species resembles Geranium nepalense, but differs in the shape of the leaves and the larger flowers and fruits. (The rhomboid cuneate leaf-segments and larger sepals distinguished it). Can also be confused with some forms of Geranium collinum, which however has typically orbicular leaves.

Plants from the Gilgit area (Astor) and parts of Swat, differ from the typical plant in the more slender habit, dense glandular indument and leaf segment lobes which are obtuse (see fig. 6, I-0). There is some resemblance of these plants with the taxon, Geranium collinum var. hirsutum. Duthie coll. no. 12261 (op. cit.) may be the same plant.

I have provisionally included all of these plants (i.e. the Gilgit specimens, cited above and those marked with an asterisk under Geranium swatense, as all of the specimens studied have the bifid stipules and a hairy petal base (on the adaxial surface). In Geranium collinum the hairs on the petal are confined to the margin.