肉菊 rou ju

Crepis umbrella Franchet, J. Bot. (Morot) 9: 255. 1895; Stebbinsia umbrella (Franchet) Lipschitz.

Herbs 3-15 cm tall, perennial, rosulate. Taproot ramose or simple. Rosette shoot with conspicuous subterranean portion with cataphylls. Cataphylls below rosette leaves numerous, ovate to lanceolate but higher up also linear, 1-3 × 0.3-1 cm, apex acute. Above-ground leaves in a ± dense leaf rosette, often purplish red; petiole-like basal portion 4-18 cm, sometimes winged and apically pinnately lobed, sparsely brownish yellow pilose; bladelike portion orbicular, ovate, or ovate-elliptic, 2-15 × (1.5-)3-11 cm, glabrous to ± pilose, base shallowly cordate to cuneate, margin mucronulately dentate and sinuate-dentate, apex rounded. Synflorescence umbelliform to corymbiform, with some to many capitula. Capitula with 15-30 florets; peduncle of 1.5-8 cm, thick, ± pilose. Involucre campanulate, 1.4-2 × 0.8-1.5 cm. Phyllaries dark green to blackish; outer phyllaries few, linear, approaching inner ones in length, mostly pilose; inner phyllaries 10-15, abaxially or on midvein pilose, apex acute to obtuse. Florets white. Achene some shade of brown, columnar to obcolumnar, 4-6 mm, weakly ribbed, between main ribs usually with ca. 3 often inconspicuous secondary ribs, apex truncate. Pappus whitish, ca. 1 cm. Fl. and fr. Jul-Sep. 2n = 16*.

Alpine meadows, scree slopes; 2600-4600 m. Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan [Bhutan, India (Sikkim)].