全缘蝇子草 quan yuan ying zi cao

Herbs perennial, 30--80 cm tall, suffrutescent at base. Roots robust, lignified. Stems caespitose, erect, multibranched; branchlets opposite, sparsely villous. Leaves with short, axillary branches, lanceolate to linear, 1--3 cm × 1.5--3 mm, pubescent, base attenuate, apex acute. Flowers in a racemiform thyrse; cymules opposite, several flowered, appearing verticillate. Pedicel 2--6(--10) mm, viscid; bracts ovate-lanceolate, small, margin membranous, ciliate. Calyx tubular-clavate, 6--9 × 2.5 mm, glabrous, slightly inflated above in fruit. Androgynophore ca. 2 mm, glabrous. Petal claws oblanceolate, glabrous, auricles absent or obsolete; limbs white, pale red below, narrowly obovate, margin entire; coronal scales minute. Stamens and styles slightly exserted; filaments glabrous. Styles 3. Capsule ovoid, 5--8 mm. Seeds reniform, tuberculate. Fl. Jun--Jul, fr. Aug--Sep.

Stony mountains; ca. 400 m. NW Xinjiang [Kazakhstan].

The above four species all belong to Silene sect. Holopetalae Chowdhuri, with many taxa described from the region of the former Soviet Union. A revision on a global scale is needed to understand properly the variation of the Chinese plants.