Authors:
Tufted habit with a short rhizomatous rootstock and stems up to 15cm tall. Basal leaves deeply trilobed, the main segments further, but shallowly, lobed and toothed; stem leaves similar but smaller and unstalked, all softly hairy. Flowers 2-5cm in diameter, yellow, white, pink or blue, with five to seven elliptic petals. Achenes hairy but not embedded in wool. Mountain meadows, open woodland, shrubberies, grazed slopes at 2100-4300m in the Himalaya from Pakistan to Burma, including Tibet. A very variable species - the best forms are well worth cultivating. It is a plant for a moist scree, peat garden or woodland border. The yellow-flowered form, which is very rare in cultivation, is restricted to high levels in the western Himalaya, notably in Kashmir. The blue and white forms are most commonly seen in gardens, but this is a species that deserves to be more widely known. [Pl.28]
a, A. blanda; b, A. narcissifolia; c, A. obtusiloba;
