Prain
Description
Corydalis filicina is a Sino-Himalayan herb distributed across the central and eastern Himalaya, with verified occurrences in Nepal, Bhutan and south-western China (Xizang and adjacent provinces). Though comparatively few collections are catalogued (some 14 georeferenced occurrences), the species occupies a well-defined montane to subalpine belt. It favours cool, humid microhabitats — shaded ravines, mossy banks beneath shrubberies, conifer and Rhododendron forest margins, and damp rock crevices — typically between about 3,000 and 4,300 m. The plant photographed at Murwa, Nepal, at 3,360 m in July, illustrates its flowering during the monsoon season, when meltwater and rainfall sustain the moist soils it requires.
It is a slender, glabrous, often glaucous annual or short-lived perennial arising from a fibrous root system. The stems are erect to ascending, branched and rather weak. The leaves are notably finely dissected, two- to three-pinnate or pinnatisect into narrow, fern-like ultimate segments, a feature reflected in the epithet "filicina" (fern-like). The flowers are borne in lax terminal or leaf-opposed racemes; each zygomorphic flower is yellow, with the outer pair of the four petals forming a spur at the base and a galeate upper lip, in the characteristic Corydalis structure. The fruit is a slender dehiscent capsule containing small shining black seeds, generally bearing an elaiosome.
Corydalis (subfamily Fumarioideae) is among the largest Himalayan genera, with intense diversification on the Tibetan Plateau and its margins. The fern-leaved species form a taxonomically intricate group requiring careful comparison of leaf division, raceme arrangement and capsule shape. No targeted conservation assessment exists; like many narrow-ranging Himalayan herbs it is potentially vulnerable to habitat disturbance and climate-driven upward shifts of subalpine vegetation.
Author: Prain · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of China Vol. 7, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 1, GBIF, Lidén & Zetterlund: Corydalis – A Gardener's Guide (1997)