刺盖草 ci gai cao

Herbs to 40 cm tall, perennial. Stems erect, branched above, unwinged, with long multicellular hairs and apically also cobwebby. Leaves concolorous, surface smooth but with sparse multicellular hairs. Upper cauline leaves sessile, elliptic, ca. 13 × 4 cm, pinnatipartite, semiamplexicaul; segments 6 or 7 pairs, obliquely triangular, margin sparsely spinose or with teeth tipped with a 3-6 mm spine. Bracts similar to leaves but smaller. Peduncles stout, with dense multicellular hairs. Capitula several, racemose. Involucre broadly campanulate, 3-4.5 cm in diam., glabrous. Phyllaries in ca. 6 rows, lacking wings and scarious appendage; outer phyllaries bractlike, 3.5-4 × 0.3-0.5 cm, margin minutely toothed and spiny, basal portion elliptic to lanceolate, apical portion subulate and narrowed into a long spine; middle and inner phyllaries markedly different, elliptic to broadly linear, ca. 2.1 × 0.2-0.4 cm, apex acute. Florets bisexual. Corolla purplish red, ca. 2.1 cm, tube ca. 1 cm. Mature achene unknown. Fl. Jul.

● Slopes; ca. 1500 m. Chongqing (Nanchuan).