皱叶绢毛菊 zhou ye juan mao ju

Crepis hookeriana C. B. Clarke, Compos. Ind. 255. 1876, not Ball (1873); C. gillii S. Moore; C. gillii var. hirsuta J. Anthony; C. trichocarpa Franchet; Soroseris gillii (S. Moore) Stebbins; S. gillii subsp. handelii Stebbins; S. gillii subsp. occidentalis Stebbins; S. hirsuta (J. Anthony) C. Shih; S. occidentalis (Stebbins) Tzvelev; S. trichocarpa (Franchet) C. Shih.

Herbs, perennial, with a long taproot, usually without cataphylls above root, acaulescent and rosulate to conspicuously caulescent with a solitary stem. Stem (if present) to 10(-20) cm tall, erect, hollow, distally glabrous or white to brownish pilose, leafy. Leaves lanceolate to oblanceolate, 2-9 × 0.3-2 cm, shallowly pinnatifid to runcinately pinnatisect or very rarely most leaves undivided, glabrous to pilose, base long attenuate into a ± winged or unwinged petiole-like portion, margin flat or undulate, apex acute; lobes ± triangular, margin entire or sparsely dentate, apex acute; upper leaves on stem gradually smaller, mostly ± pilose; uppermost leaves on stem subtending capitula and on peduncles reduced, linear, pilose or more rarely glabrous, margin entire. Synflorescence ± hemispheric, with numerous closely crowded capitula. Capitula with 4 florets. Peduncle usually shorter than capitulum. Involucre narrowly cylindric, (8-)10-15(-17) × 2-3 mm. Phyllaries usually dark green, mostly pilose; outer phyllaries ca. 2, similar to uppermost reduced leaves, mostly ± as long as to longer than inner phyllaries; inner phyllaries 4, glabrous or abaxially pilose along midvein. Florets yellow, sometimes with blackish corolla tube and ligule base. Anther tube and style blackish. Achene brown, subfusiform to very narrowly obconic, 4-5 mm, subequally ribbed, between main ribs usually with 1 or 2(or 3) secondary ribs, often shortly acutely papillose, base attenuate, apex shorter or longer attenuate. Pappus whitish to straw-colored and mostly ± grayish apically, (0.7-)0.9-1.5 cm. Fl. and fr. Jul-Aug. 2n = 16*.

Alpine meadows, scree slopes, rocky slopes, alpine thickets, rock crevices in glacial streams; 2800-5500 m. Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan [Bhutan, N India, Nepal].

Stebbins (Mem. Torrey Bot. Club 19(3): 41. 1940) has already stated that delimitation between Soroseris hookeriana and S. gillii is problematic and may need reconsideration. It still can be agreed with Stebbins that delimitation of his former S. hookeriana subsp. erysimoides (now treated as a separate species S. erysimoides) from both the typical subspecies and S. gillii appears sound. On the basis of the richer material meanwhile available, Stebbins’s delimitation of S. gillii (the correct name of which would actually be S. trichocarpa) from S. hookeriana subsp. hookeriana, however, fails, as does his infraspecific classification of the variation, mainly in the size of the involucres and in the indumentum, within S. gillii. Actually S. gillii and S. hookeriana belong to the same complex, widespread in W China, the subdivision of which (probably most appropriately at subspecies level) is in need of revision. Also included is S. hirsuta, based on Crepis gillii var. hirsuta, which separates the pilose plants of this complex and seems particularly artificial. For the time being, it appears at least a pragmatic solution to treat this complex as a single species.