万丈深 wan zhang shen

Herbs 15-70 cm tall, perennial, with a strong taproot. Caudex woody, simple or branched, leafless. Stem dark green, erect, apically branched and setose, basally glabrous and with few scalelike leaves only in and above middle with well-developed leaves. Lower scalelike stem leaves lanceolate, 0.5-2 × ca. 0.3 mm, apex acute. Middle stem leaves sessile, lanceolate, narrowly elliptic, or narrowly elliptic-lanceolate, 2-8 × 0.3-2.5 cm, glabrous to setose, base cuneate, margin entire or sinuate-dentate, apex acute. Upper stem leaves similar to middle stem leaves but smaller, uppermost ones bractlike. Synflorescence corymbiform, with few to some capitula. Capitula with 20-25 florets; peduncle shorter or slightly longer than capitulum, slender. Involucre cylindric, 8-11 × 3-4 mm. Phyllaries abaxially somewhat tomentose and setose on midvein; outer phyllaries linear to linear-lanceolate, longest to 1/2 as long as inner ones, apex acute to obtuse; inner phyllaries 12-14, adaxially glabrous, margin broadly scarious, apex obtuse. Anther tube 4-5 mm. Achene brown, fusiform, 4-5 mm, with 10 ribs, apically attenuate. Pappus white, 5.5-6.5 mm. Fl. and fr. Jul-Oct.

● Mountain slopes; ca. 2000 m. Yunnan.

The entire plants are used medicinally.

Crepis phoenix and the following three species of fairly restricted distribution in chiefly S China are closely related and seem to form a complex, in which introgression and hybridization and diploid and polyploid cytotypes in all species occur. Delimitation of species in this complex is difficult and has already been stated as tentative by Babcock (Univ. Calif. Publ. Bot. 22: 632ff. 1947). A revision of the complex based on field and population studies is still needed.