Wall. ex Hook.f. & Thomson
Description
Corydalis elegans is a slender alpine herb of the western Himalaya, known principally from India and Nepal, where its 22 documented occurrences reflect a restricted and rather local distribution. It is a plant of high-elevation habitats, growing on moist open slopes, among rocks, in damp shrubberies and along the margins of forest in the subalpine and alpine zones, where it flowers in the early summer after snowmelt. In west Nepal it ascends to considerable altitude, as shown by the collection along the Churta Khola at about 3700 m in June, a site typical of its cool, well-watered montane preference.
The plant is a glabrous, somewhat glaucous annual or short-lived herb with slender erect to ascending stems arising from a fine root system. The leaves are alternate, two- to three-pinnately dissected into small, narrow, oblong to obovate ultimate segments, giving a delicate, finely cut appearance. The inflorescence is a terminal raceme of few-to-several zygomorphic flowers; each flower is yellow, the outer of the four petals prolonged backward into a slender curved spur, the inner petals connivent over the stamens, which are united into two bundles of three. The fruit is a slender dehiscent capsule containing several small black seeds, typically bearing an elaiosome.
Corydalis, treated within Papaveraceae (sometimes segregated as Fumariaceae), is one of the largest genera of the Himalaya, with a great proliferation of species across the alpine belt. The spurred, nectariferous flowers are adapted to pollination by long-tongued bees, while the elaiosome-bearing seeds are dispersed by ants. As a narrowly distributed western Himalayan endemic known from few collections, C. elegans warrants attention as a potentially range-restricted species, its conservation tied to the stability of high-altitude habitats sensitive to grazing and climatic change.
Author: Wall. ex Hook.f. & Thomson · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Nepal, Flora of Pakistan, Flora of China Vol. 7, Lidén & Zetterlund monograph Corydalis (A Gardener's Guide)