Lignariella Baehni

Herbs, annual, slender, flexuous, subspreading, prostrate, glabrous, or with simple hairs. Leaves deeply trilobed or tripartite, upper ones sometimes entire. Flowers axillary, solitary or few in bracteate racemes, blue, pinkish or white; pedicels thin, flexuous, elongated in fruit. Sepals ovate, equal; inner sepals pouched or saccate at base, cocbleate at apex. Petals showy, purplish, usually twice as long as sepals. Stamens 6, equal, straight; filaments somewhat winged; anthers ovate. Lateral glands semilunar, eacircling the base of stamens, converging with transverse glands. Ovary ovoid, shortly stipitate, 1-locular, 2 - 8-ovuled; style short, reflexed, slightly dilated at apex. Fruits ellipsoid to oblong-ellipsoid, subterete, more or less falcate or crowned with reflexed style, glabrous; valves convex, membranous; septum absent or rudimentary. Seeds (-1) 2 - 5, 1-seriate, oblong-ovoid; cotyledons accumbent.

Himalayas in between 3000 and 4700 m, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet and India; 2 Species, both in India.

KEY TO THE SPECIES

1a. Leaves petiolate, 15 - 2 mm broad; pedicels 10 - 15 mm long in fruit; petals ca 4 mm long

1. Lignariella hobsonii

b. Leaves sessile or subsessile, 2 - 8 mm broad; pedicels 6 - 10 mm long in fruit; petals 2.5 - 3 mm long

2. Lignariella obscura

List of Lower Taxa