暗粉苞菊 an fen bao ju

Chondrilla maracandica Bunge.

Herbs 30-70 cm tall, perennial, broomlike. Stem basally erect-spreadingly and higher up divaricately branched; branches slender, glabrous or arachnoid hairy, ± leafy. Lower stem leaves narrowly elliptic, 4-4.5 × 0.2-1 cm, early deciduous, margin subentire to weakly runcinately dentate. Middle and upper stem leaves linear-elliptic, linear, or subfiliform, 2-4 cm × 0.5-1.5 mm, margin entire. Capitula with usually 10-12 florets. Involucre 1.1-1.2 cm, arachnoid hairy and with or without blackish bristles. Phyllaries dark green to blackish; outer phyllaries triangular-ovate to lanceolate, longest ca. 2.5 mm; inner phyllaries 8, abaxially with or without long bristles along midvein. Achene body 3-5 mm, with a corona of 5 short unlobed to ± unequally 3-lobed (middle lobe longest) erect scales of ca. 0.2 mm, below corona smooth or with isolated tubercles, sometimes corona inconspicuous or absent; beak stout, 0.8-2.3 mm, constricted and with distinct fine articulation approximately in its middle. Pappus 6-7 mm. Fl. and fr. Jun-Sep.

Gravelly areas in deserts; 900-4000 m. Xinjiang [Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan].

Chondrilla maracandica, treated as a species of the flora of Xinjiang by C. H. An (Fl. Xinjiang. 5: 430. 1999; see also Leonova, Fl. URSS 29: 578. 1964; Tzvelev, Rast. Tsentral. Azii 14b: 84. 2008), appears not convincingly distinct from C. phaeocephala and is here tentatively considered as conspecific.