170 ACONITUM. 
sensation, cambium continuous, forming in cross-section a slightly sinuous "ве; mother- 
tuber much shrunk and wrinkled with more numerous root-fibres, eer sieve-strands 
surrounded by a mantle of sclerenchymatic cells. Innovation-bud conie, 4—5 mm. long ; 
scales ovate, prominently finely nerved, persistent. Stem erect, with or without a 
slender, hypogeous base (up to 3 сш. long) which emits numerous fine roots near 
the upper end, simple, erect, 40—90 ст, high, rather slender, covered with short 
spreading yellow hairs in the upper part, glabrous below, hollow. Leaves scattered, 
distant, excepting the lowest 2 or 8 which are usually decayed at the time of 
flowering, up to7, glabrous or the uppermost very sparingly hairy; petioles slender, 
the lower up to 25 cm. long and much dilated at the base, uppermost very short; 
blade orbicular-cordate to reniform in outline with a rather wide sinus (up to 8 cm. 
deep) up to 11 em. high from the sinus to the tip, up to 20 em. across, 5-pedati- 
partite to the very base or almost so in the inner, and to §—,%; in the outer incisions, 
divisions deltoid from a cuneate base or the outermost trapezoid, intermediate division 
3-lobed to the middle, middle lobe elongate, pinnati-laciniate to inciso-dentate, ultimate 
segments or teeth acute or very acute, inner lateral divisions similar, but less 
symmetric, outermost 2 lobed or 2-partite, all lacini: more or less linear-lanceolate and 
divaricate, the outermost often overlapping and thus closing the sinus; uppermost blades 
sessile or subsessile, much smaller and less dissected. Inflorescence a loose raceme, 
10—25 em. long, often with slender, erect, few-flowered additional branches from the leafy 
base; rhachis slender, densely yellow-pubescent to subtomentose; floral leaves like the 
preceding leaves, but much reduced, passing upwards into the trifid or entire and linear- 
lanceolate bracts; bracteoles at or below the middle, resembling reduced bracts, very often 
suppressed; pedicels slender, erect, the lowest at length up to 7 cm. long. Sepals 
blue, hairy; uppermost helmet-shaped, helmet semi-orbicular in profile, shortly beaked 
20—24 mm. high, 17—90 mm. from the tip to the base, 7—9 mm. wide; lateral sepals, 
slightly contiguous with the helmet, oblique, orbicular-obovate, broadly clawed, 16 mm. 
long, 14 mm. broad; lower sepals deflexed, oblong, subacute, 10 mm. long. Nectaries 
glabrous; claw erect; hood oblique to subhorizontal, oblong, gibbous or the back 
from the middle upwards or near the top; lip deflexed, lanceolate, acute, entire. 
Filaments glabrous, about 7 mm. long, narrowly winged, wings gradually attenuate. 
Carpels 5, conniving and contiguous, tomentose, gradually passing into the style. 
Follicles oblong, obliquely subtruncate, 15—20 mm. long, 4—5 mm. broad, dorsally sub- 
convex, loosely tomentose or at length almost glabrous, conspicuously reticulate: Seeds 
obovoid to obpyramidal, 2:03 mm. long, winged along the rhaphe, transversely lamellate 
on the faces, lamelle undulate. 
DISTRIBUTION; Alpine Himalaya of Nepal. 
Nerau: without precise locality, Wallich, 1818 sub “ Aconitum atrox, Wall.” ! and 1819 
sub “Aconitum ferox Wall.”! (Hb. British Museum); Wallick 1819! (Herb. DeCandolle); 
Walli-h, comm. by Wallich to W. Hooker in 1891! (Hb. Kew); Wallich, communicated 
by Wallich to Hornemann! (Hb. Copenhagen); Wallich, with the distribution label of 
Wallieh's Catalogue 47211 (Hb. Linnean Society, London, with the pencil note 
"Sheopore 1821," and Hb. Kew). (4721, A of the Catalogue with the remark “Mont. 
altiss. Napalie, 1821,” refers doubtless to this species), 
VERNACULAR NAMES: Bick, Bickma, Wallich, MS. on the label accompanying the 
specimen sent to England in 1818 as “Aconitum atrox Wall." 
