1S96.] D. Prain — Soma additional Fumariaceae. 41 



J in. ; flowers orange-yellow, \ in. long, spur slightly saccate at base scarcely half 

 as long as lips ; capsules flattened, § in. long. 



This species is very nearly related to C. flabcllata and 0. adiantifolia but has 

 different leaf -segments and rather smaller flowers. Its nearest ally is C. pamculigera 

 Regel and Schmalh., which has similar habit and foliage and very similar flowers 

 and fruits, but which differs in having a paniculate inflorescence. 



52. (24.) Cortdalis crassipolia Boyle. 



The writer finds from the St. Petersburg Herbm. specimens lent for study by 

 Dr. Batalin, that 0: Fedtschenhoana Eegel [Pi. Fedtsch. 3], of which its author 

 did not know the fruit and which he compared with the very different C. stricta, 

 has capsules indistinguishable from those of C. crassifolia. The two species then 

 form together an exceedingly distinct natural group. A South African species, 

 Corydalis vesicaria (Cysticapnos africana), has very similar capsules ; they are not 

 however, as Bentham and Hooker contend (Gen. Plant, i. 56) " exactly as in C. 

 crassifolia ; " in C. vesicaria the placentas, in place of being nerviform, are diffused ; 

 the seeds, in place of having an appendage, are, as in the other South African 

 species, naked.* 



* Among the specimens collected by Mr. Pratt in Szechuen there is a very fine 

 species of Corydalis that does not appear to have been yet described ; it represents 

 a group with a rootstock unlike that of any of the Indian species and resem- 

 bling the rootstocks met with in the species of Dicentra (§ Cucullaria). The species 

 may be diagnosed as follows. 



Coetdalis balsamiflora Prain; rootstock bulbiferoas, crown with solitary 

 long-petioled radical leaf and emitting a slender flexuous leafless stem ; leaf ternate, 

 circumference ovate, the lobes pinnatipartite, ultimate segments narrowly oblong 

 or spathulate obtuse entire or 2-fid ; bracts large leafy sessile pinnatisect ; raceme 

 few-fld., pedicels very long and flowers very large, purple, the spur long slightly in- 

 f undibuliform somewhat incurved and obtuse at apex as long as wingless lamina ; 

 ovary narrow ovules 1-seriate extending from end to end of placentas. 



Szechuen : near Tachienlu, Pratt n. 781. 



Rootstock with thick fleshy bulbiferous scales; petiole 4 in. long, lamina 1'25 in. 

 diam. ; stem 10-12 in. ; lower bracts 1'5 in. long, 1 in. across ; lower pedicels 1*5 in. 

 long. Flowers 1'25 in long. 



The flowers here are as large as in C. temulifolia Pranch. from Central China 

 which has however a very different rootstock and has a narrower shorter straight* 

 conical spur. Very like this species as regards rootstock is another from Szechuen 

 (Pratt, n. 822) of which the flowers are as yet unknown but which differs from 

 C. balsamiflora in having two scattered stem-leaves and obovate fruits with seeds 

 in 2-rows confined to the upper part of the capsule. 



J. ii. 6 



