Pegaeophyton Hayek & Hand.-Mazz.

Herbs, perennial with thick or thin rootstocks, glabrous or with simple hairs. Leaves rosulate, spathulate, linear-lanceolate, obovate or ovate. Flowers solitary on slender stapes, variable in size, white or purplish. Sepals spreading, rounded at apex, not pouched at base. Petals about twice as long as sepals with broad limb. Stamens 6. Ovary narrowly ovoid, glabrous, ca 10-ovuled; stigma sessile or subsessile. Fruits ovoid, ellipsoid or suborbicular; valves with faint midrib and veins; septum incomplete. Seeds biseriate, few.

C. Asia and Himalayas; 3 species, 2 in India.

KEY TO THE SPECIES

1a. Rootstock slender, ca 1 mm thick; scapes minutely pubescent on one side

1. Pegaeophyton minutum

b. Rootstock stout, ca 10 mm thick; scapes glabrous

2. Pegaeophyton scapiflorum

List of Lower Taxa