红脉兔儿风 hong mai tu er feng

Herbs, perennial, 15-60 cm tall. Leaves in basal rosette; petiole 1.5-11 cm, wingless, strigose; leaf blade ovate or ovate-lanceolate, 2.5-11 × 1.4-4 cm, subleathery, palmate-pinnate veined, abaxially whitish green, veins red, strigose, adaxially green, sparsely strigose, base cordate, margin entire or obscurely callose-denticulate, ciliate, apex shortly acuminate. Capitula subsessile or shortly pedunculate, solitary or 2 or 3, arranged in spikes, 3-flowered; involucre cylindric, 3-4 mm in diam.; phyllaries ca. 6-seriate, papery, abaxially glabrous, outer phyllaries ovate, 2-3 mm, inner narrowly oblong, 9-11 mm. Florets bisexual, chasmogamous, corollas white, tubular, ca. 1 cm, deeply 5-lobed, lobes linear, unequal, anther appendages apiculate. Achenes fusiform, ca. 4.5 mm, ribbed, densely pilose; pappus dark white, ca. 7 mm. Fl. Jun-Jul.

● Forests; 800-1000 m. Sichuan.

This species is very similar to Ainsliaea cavaleriei, A. fragrans, and A. ramosa in its leaf blade ovate to oblong, leaf base deeply cordate, and petioles villous, but it differs by its phyllaries glabrous and leaf blade abaxially whitish green with veins red.