西藏微孔草 xi zang wei kong cao

Herbs ca. 1 cm tall, sparsely short hispid or subglabrous. Branches very short and crowded in middle of conspicuous leaf rosette. Leaves prostrate, spatulate, 3-13 × 0.8-2.8 cm, abaxially short white bristly, hairs discoid at base, adaxially sparser and short strigose, base attenuate into petiole, margin subentire or undulate, apex rounded to obtuse. Inflorescences terminal, very crowded and forming dense headlike cluster; bracts linear to oblong-linear, 0.2-2 cm, short pubescent, adaxially with intermixed short bristles. Pedicel less than 0.8 mm, elongated to 5 mm, pendulous in fruit, stout, sparsely short hispid. Calyx ca. 1.5 mm, to 3 mm in fruit; lobes narrowly triangular, sparsely pubescent outside, ciliate along margin. Corolla blue or white, glabrous; tube ca. 1.2 mm; appendages low trapeziform, ca. 0.3 mm; limb 1.2-4 mm wide; lobes orbicular-ovate. Nutlets ovate to subrhombic, 2-2.5 × 1.6-2 mm, finely tuberculate with glochids on tubercles or not tuberculate, with or without aperture; attachment scar at middle or slightly above adaxially.

Lakeshore marshes, disturbed slopes and roadsides, rocky areas, meadows; 3500-5300 m. Qinghai, Xinjiang, Xizang [India, Nepal]

Lower Taxa

• Microula tibetica var. laevis W. T. Wang
• Microula tibetica var. pratensis (Maximowicz) W. T. Wang
• Microula tibetica var. tibetica