萎软香青 wei ruan xiang qing

Rhizome slender, slightly woody; stolons slender, with smaller leaves or terminal rosette leaves. Stems caespitose, erect from geniculate base, 20-30 cm, slender, usually curved, simple or with few synflorescence branches, herbaceous, pallid arachnoid villous, lower leaves dense and upper leaves lax. Lower leaves caducous and lost by anthesis, narrowly spatulate, base acuminate and becoming a long stalk, ca. 5 × 0.8 cm; middle and upper leaves erect or spreading, linear-spatulate or linear, 2.5-5 × 0.2-0.5 cm, base attenuate or equilateral, decurrent on stem and becoming a narrow wing, margin flat, apex obtuse or rounded, with small cusp; all leaves pallid arachnoid lanate on both surfaces, inconspicuously 3-veined. Capitula numerous, compound corymbiform, terminal on stems and branches; peduncle 1-3 mm. Involucre campanulate, 4-5 × 4-5 mm; phyllaries 4- or 5-seriate; outer phyllaries light fulvous, elliptic, ca. 2 mm, lanate, apex obtuse; middle ones oblong or elliptic, 4-5 × 1-1.5 mm, upper parts white, apex obtuse or acute, sometimes lacerate, lower parts membranous, subhyaline; innermost ones narrowly oblong, ca. 4 mm, with a claw ca. 2/3 of full length. Receptacle with fimbrillate short hairs. Center of predominantly female capitula with female florets and 1-6 male florets. Corolla 2.5-3 mm. Pappus slightly longer than corolla. Achene subterete, ca. 0.7 mm, villosulous and with small glandular spot. Fl. and fr. Jun-Aug.

● Peaks, hillside grasslands, shrub forests; 1800-2400 m. W Guizhou (Weining), Sichuan, NE Yunnan.

No specimens of this species were seen by the second author.