Herbs, perennial, grayish purple, 5-15 cm tall, lax cushion plant. Rootstock long (often very long), narrow, crowned by a lax rosette of leaves and usually several stems. Stems naked below, above usually with 2 opposite leaves; basal parts of stems and petioles often long, thin and flexuous, partly buried in scree. Leaf blade 3-7 × 2-7 cm, biternate (to bipinnate); leaflets entire to 2-5-divided; segments from broadly obovate and obtuse to lanceolate and acute. Racemes corymbose, 4-7-flowered; bracts lanceolate-entire to flabellate-divided, 10-30 mm. Pedicel suberect, straight, 10-30 mm, at fruiting hooked at apex. Sepals ca. 0.5 × 1 mm, shallowly to deeply dentate. Corolla pale grayish blue to lavender or almost white, very broad in profile, conspicuously spongy-undulate, with strong pleasant scent, apex of inner petals (excluding dorsal crests) and keels of outer petals dark tipped; outer petals with broadly triangular subobtuse apex, usually broadly crested; upper petal 15-18 mm, crest high and entire, gradually attenuate to spur end; spur slightly downcurved, short, 3(-4) mm, broad; nectary ca. 1/2 as long as spur; inner petals 9-10 mm. Stigma rounded, with broad confluent marginal papillae; submarginal geminate papillae present; basal lobes well developed, with geminate papillae. Capsule obovoid, ca. 10 × 3-4 mm, 3-5-seeded; style ca. 3 mm. Seeds ca. 1.5 mm, smooth (Nepal) or dull (India: Sikkim), not known in China. Self-incompatible. Fl. Jul-Sep.
Home