| Marvellous, Natha :) For those not familiar with V. ignobilis, I have the description from B.K. Shishkin (Editor) Flora of the USSR, Vol. XV (1949), translated in 1974 [via an email from Gerd Knoche a few years ago, when you, he and I were discussing it]: "Perennial, 3-7 cm high, weaker and more slender than V. odorata; rhizome thickish, with approximate joints, giving rise to slender, creeping rooting aerial stolons to 12 cm long, these bearing at their summit a rosette of basal leaves and flowers in the axils; leaves smaller than those of V. odorata, cordate reniform or partly reniform, fully grown 0,7-3,5 cm long and 1-3,2cm broad, rounded or very obtusely triangular at apex, with a rather deep sinus at base, crenulate or crenate-dentate, thin, glabrous, or petiole and veins soft-hairy; stipules thin, hyaline, ovate, acute, shortly ciliate and often glandular-ciliate; flowers 1,2-2 cm long, scentless or very faintly fragrant;
peduncles glabrous or sligthtly pubescent with recurved hairs, two bracts at or below middle; sepals ovate or oblong, obtuse or partly subacute; petals lilac,
entire or crenulate or (lower petal) notched; lateral petals beardless; spur 2-3mm long, straight, slightly attenuate toward tip obtusish; ovary pubescent;
style scarcely compressed laterally, recurved at summit, beak shorter than style diameter, horizontal or obliquely ascending at tip. May.
Alpine zone of mountains. - Caucasus: Sisc. and E. Transc.(Main Caucasus Range), W. and S. Transc. Gen. distr.: Iran (N.). Described from Gud-Gora Mountain and the vicinity of Kaishaur on the Georgian Military Road. Type in Leningrad." |
