红花火绒草 hong hua huo rong cao

Herbs, perennial, similar to Antennaria in habit. Rhizome stout, densely covered with brown decayed leaves with dense radical rosettes of sterile leaves and flowering stems. Stems usually single, erect, 8-35 cm tall, densely white lanuginous. Leaves spatulate to spatulate-lanceolate, 20-50 × 3-12 mm, both surfaces densely white tomentose, apex rounded. Capitula 3-10, heterogamous, in 1 or rarely 2-5 dense corymbs, 5-6 mm in diam.; bracteal leaves 5-8, linear-spatulate, similar to upper cauline leaves, forming a star of 2-5 cm in diam. or rarely compound stars. Involucre ca. 4 mm, white lanate; phyllaries 2- or 3-seriate, inner ones lanceolate, apex light brown or red, acute or obtuse, glabrous. Corolla 3-3.5 mm, upper part usually light red, scurfy pilosulose; corolla of male florets narrowly funnel-shaped in upper part, with narrowly triangular lobes; corolla of female florets filiform. Achenes ca. 1 mm, hairy. Pappus light red or red, longer than corolla, serrulate. Fl. Jun-Aug, fr. Aug-Sep.

● Grassy slopes, thickets, dry riverbeds; 1200-3700 m. W Sichuan.