刺木蓼 ci mu liao

Atraphaxis spinosa var. angustifolia Chang Y. Yang & Y. L. Han.

Shrubs 30-100 cm tall. Stem slender, with gray scabrous bark; woody branches slender, without leaves at ends, spine-pointed; herbaceous branchlets of current year soon becoming lignified, straight or slightly flexuous, slender, glabrous. Leaves gray-green or blue-green, orbicular, elliptic, broadly elliptic, or broadly ovate, rarely obovate, 3-7 × 3-5 mm, leathery, both surfaces glabrous, reticulate veins raised abaxially, base rounded or cuneate, gradually narrowing into a short petiole, margin entire or slightly undulate, apex rounded or obtuse, short acuminate; ocrea brown at base, cylindric, 2-3 mm, membranous and inconspicuously veined in upper part, cleft into 2 aristate teeth. Pedicel ca. 5 mm, jointed at middle or slightly below. Flowers 2-6 at leaf axil of current year’s branchlets. Tepals pink; outer tepals reflexed in fruit, oblong-ovate or ovate, 2-3 mm. Achenes compressed, light brown, shiny, ovoid or broadly ovoid, smooth, base rounded, apex acuminate or obtuse. Fl. and fr. May-Sep.

Slopes, deserts including the Gobi, roadsides, margins of cultivated land; 400-1800 m. Xinjiang [Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan; SW Asia].