Cardamine franchetiana Diels

Herbs perennial, (5-)10-20(-27) cm tall, hirsute or glabrescent. Rhizomes to 1 cm, with stolons and numerous bulbils; bulbils whitish, fleshy scales ovoid or subglobose, with rudimentary apical appendages. Stems simple, erect; underground proximal part whitish, slender or filiform, glabrous; aboveground part green or purplish, stout, pilose or glabrous. Rhizomal leaves 1 or 2, 4-12(-18) cm; petiole 4-10 cm; terminal leaflet oblong, 4-10 × 2-6 mm, sessile or with a petiolule to 2 mm; lateral leaflets 2-4 pairs, similar to terminal one. Cauline leaves (1 or)2 or 3(or 4), 1.5-5 cm; petiole 0.4-4(-6) cm, base not auriculate; terminal leaflet oblong to oblong-elliptic, 4-11 × 1.5-3 mm, ciliate or glabrous, base cuneate, margin entire, apex mucronate; lateral leaflets (2 or)3-6 pairs, similar to terminal one. Racemes 3-8-flowered. Fruiting pedicels divaricate-ascending to ascending, 4-13 mm, straight. Sepals ovate or suboblong, 2-3 × 1.2-1.7 mm, margin membranous. Petals white or rarely lavender, broadly obovate or suborbicular, 6-9 × (3-)4-6 mm, base abruptly narrowed into a claw 1-2 mm, apex rounded. Median filament pairs 3-4 × 0.4-0.6 mm, flattened, not extended apically into a tooth; lateral pair slender, 2-3 mm; anthers oblong, 0.6-0.9 mm. Ovules 8-16 per ovary. Fruit linear, 1.5-2.5 cm × 1.5-2 mm; valves smooth, glabrous; style 1-3 mm. Seeds brown, broadly oblong or ovate, 1.3-1.6 × 0.9-1.2 mm, wingless. Fl. Jun-Jul, fr. Aug-Sep.

Qinghai, Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan.

* Mountain slopes, deep valleys, rocky areas, scree, crevices of boulders, meadows, moist pastures; 2300-4800 m.

Loxostemon delavayi Franchet, Bull. Soc. Bot. France 33: 400. 1886, not Cardamine delavayi Franchet (1886); Loxostemon smithii O. E. Schulz; L. smithii var. glabrescens O. E. Schulz.