白头翁 bai tou weng

Anemone chinensis Bunge, Enum. Pl. China Bor. 2. 1833.

Plants 15--35 cm tall. Rhizome ca. 0.8--1.5 cm in diam. Leaves 4 or 5, not fully expanded at anthesis; petiole 7--15 cm, densely long pilose; leaf blade broadly ovate, 4.5--14(--24) × 6.5--16(--25) cm, 3-foliolate, abaxially thickly pilose, adaxially glabrous, margin entire or toothed; lateral leaflets unequally 2-lobed, sessile or subsessile; central leaflet petiolulate or sessile, broadly ovate, 3-lobed, central lobe obovate. Scape 1(or 2), 2.5--5.5 cm, to 23 cm in fruit, puberulent; involucral bracts puberulent, basally connate into a 3--10 mm tube, apically palmately 3-lobed, each lobe linear, margin entire or slightly 3-lobed. Sepals violet, erect, oblong-ovate, 2.8--4.4 × 0.9--2 cm, abaxially puberulent. Stamens ca. 1/2 as long as sepals; anthers yellow. Infructescences 9--12 cm in diam. Achenes 3.5--4 mm, flattened, sparsely puberulent. Persistent styles 3.5--6.5 cm. Fl. Mar--May, fr. Jun--Jul.

Forest margins, slopes; 200--3200 m. Anhui, S Gansu, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Henan, Hubei, Jiangsu, Jilin, Liaoning, Nei Mongol, E Qinghai, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi, W Sichuan [Korea, Russia (Far East)].

Pulsatilla chinensis var. kissii (Mandl) S. H. Li & Y. H. Huang (Fl. Pl. Herb. Chinae Bor.-Orient. 3: 162. 1975) has been proposed for plants growing on dry slopes in S Liaoning. The basionym Pulsatilla ´ kissii Mandl (Oesterr. Bot. Z. 71: 178. 1922) was originally described as a hybrid between P. chinensis and P. cernua which it seems quite likely to be.

Pulsatilla chinensis is used medicinally.