Authors:
Deeply and stoutly taprooted, usually with one, but sometimes several, flattened rosettes 3-6cm in diameter. Leaves tightly imbricated and neatly spiralled, strongly spathulate with a long, flattened, false petiole, leathery, olive-brown to pale glaucous-green, the margins sometimes reddish. Flowers 5-7mm across in a ring on thickened petioles, typically blackish-purple with a yellow throat and a 'moustache' of white hairs across the lateral petals, but sometimes paler and veined and only partially 'moustached', spring to early summer in the wild. Chile and Argentina, in the central cordillera, in bare screes, soily slopes and summit gravels, often as isolated colonies at 2300-3800m. Similar and probably allied are the following: V. leyboldiana has acutish leaf tips which are longer than broad and lightly toothed, flowers dark purple ('moustache' not recorded): V. portulacacea (Chile only) is more like atropurpurea in foliage but with lavender-blue deeper veined blooms. V. skottsbergiana is similar but with leaves more or less toothed near the tips and pale violet blooms. [Pl.523]
