Swertia cuneata - Blue Alpine Swertia

Blue Alpine Swertia is a high altitude perennial herb 15-30 cm tall. Flowers are 5-merous, pale blue, 2-3 cm in diameter; tube 1.5-2 mm, base bearing 5 bundles of yellow hairs; petals ovate-elliptic, 1.5-2 cm, tip blunt. Nectaries are 2 per petal, linear-oblong, radially elongated, with hairy fimbriae 2.5-3 mm. Filaments are 9-10 mm; anthers ellipsoid, 2-2.5 mm. Style is indistinct; stigma lobes nearly round. Sepals are usually spreading, oblong-spoon-shaped to elliptic, 6-9 mm, base usually distinctly contracted into a claw, margin dark brown and slightly curled, tip rounded. Flower-stalks are spreading, 2.7-7 cm. Flowers are borne in 5-7-flowered raceme. Stems is erect, striped, simple, base sheathed by blackish remains of old leaf-stalks. Leaves are mostly basal; leaf-stalk winged, 1.2-3 cm; leaf blade spoon-shaped to obovate, 1.5-3.5 x 0.9-1.2 cm, base narrowed and decurrent into wings of leaf-stalk, tip rounded, veins 3-7, arcuate. Middle to upper stem leaves are 2 or 3 pairs, stalkless or short stalked; leaf blade narrowly elliptic, 2-5.5 cm x 6-11 mm, base narrowed, tip blunt, veins 3-5. Capsules are ovoid-ellipsoid, 0.9-1.2 cm. Seeds brown, almost spherical, about 2 mm. Blue Alpine Swertia is found in the Himalayas, from Kumaun to Sikkim, NE India and SE Tibet, at altitudes of 3600-4700 m. Flowering: September-October.