单果鹤虱 dan guo he shi

Herbs annual. Stems stout, branched above, spreading and appressed hirsute; stem leaves linear, 1.5-3.5 cm × 2-3 mm, flat or longitudinally flexed along midvein, spreading white hirsute, hairs discoid at base. Inflorescences terminal on branches, elongated in fruit; bracts leaflike, much longer than fruit. Calyx lobes linear, 2-2.5 mm, slightly enlarged. Corolla light blue, ca. 3 mm; tube somewhat shorter than calyx; throat appendages ca. 0.5 mm; limb ca. 2 mm wide; lobes divaricate, suboblong. Ovary globose, 4-parted, with 1 mericarp developing into a nutlet. Gynobase ca. as long as nutlet, usually horizontal but somewhat raised at apex. Developed nutlet 1, acute ovoid, ca. 2 mm, usually horizontal, granulose, adaxial base coherent to gynobase, disc margin with a single row of glochids; glochids 0.5-1 mm. Fl. and fr. Jul-Aug.

* Sunny hillside meadows; ca. 1100 m. NW Xinjiang (Jeminay Xian).