beautifulflowers032840mbp

32 BEAUTIFUL FLOWERS OF KASHMIR [Plate &
Androsace villosa,
Linn.
(Villosa means being covered with long weak hairs.)
An extremely variable plant covered all over with long
white hairs, forming tufted masses of short naked stems and
stolons bearing at close intervals hairy rosettes i-1 in.
diameter. Leaves linear-lance-shaped or lance-shaped-inversely
egg-shaped, almost blunt, quite entire, stalkless, covered on
both sides with long, woolly, white hairs. Flowering stems
1-2 in. long or absent. Bracts linear-lance-shaped, mostly
longer than the short and sometimes unequal flower-stalks.
Calyx bell-shaped, cleft to the middle or beyond, lobes linearlance-shaped
or lance-shaped, or lance-egg-shaped, Corolla
white or rose-coloured, tube almost as long as the calyx-lobes,
throat yellow-red-ringed, lobes inversely egg-shaped, entire or
somewhat notched, limb i-f in. diameter. Seeds few.
Locality. Ladakh.
Distribution. W. Himalaya, from Kashmir to Kumaon,
Afghanistan, Caucasus, Asia Minor, Europe, Central and
N. Asia.
CORTUSA, Linn.
Fig. 6. Cortusa Matthioli, Linn.
(After P. A, Matthiolus, born at Sienna in 1500, one of the better
commentators of Dioscorides.)
A perennial, hairy herb. Leaves all radical, long-stalked,
glabrous or hairy, membranous, rounded - heart - shaped,
7-9-lobed, crenate-toothed, 1-4 in. diameter, stalk 4-6 in.
Flowering stems much longer than the leaf -stalks, slender,
5-12-flowered in an umbel. Flower-stalks slender, very
unequal. Bracts often unequal, more or less broadly lanceshaped,
entire or toothed, 4-i in. long. Calyx bell-shaped,
cleft to the middle, 5-lobed, lobes narrowly triangular, sharppointed.
Corolla purple, sometimes white between funneland
bell-shaped, i-f in. diameter, cleft to the middle, tube
short, throat naked, lobes 5, oblong, blunt. Stamens 5,
anthers almost stalkless at the base of the corolla, arrowshaped.
Style filiform, exserted. Capsule egg-shaped,
5-valved, many-seeded.
Flowers. June to August.
Locality. Tosh Maidan, along top of ridge; below Tosh
Basam Gali, in Juniper tract,
Maidan, 9,600 ft., common ;