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Botanical Description

Stems 25-45cm high, sometimes less. Leaves three to seven, grey-green, downy and ciliate. Flowers solitary or in twos to fives, 5-6.5cm long, orange-scarlet, the anthers yellow or purple. Central Asia, in the Pamir Alai. The type species usually has solitary flowers and is rarely cultivated. The following cultivars represent praestans in cultivation: 'Fuselier' always has three to five smaller flowers which expand somewhat earlier than the others; 'Tubergen's Variety' bears two to five flowers generally with a basal yellow suffusion and is a good doer, persisting in light soils without annual lifting.

a, T. goulimyi; b, T. greigii; c, T. kaufmanniana; d, T. linifolia; e, T. praestans;