短角蒲公英 duan jiao pu gong ying

Herbs 10-20(-25) cm tall. Petiole pale green or sometimes pinkish, ± winged; leaf blade bright light green with a greenish midvein, oblanceolate, (8-)10-14(-23) × 2-3 cm, sparsely arachnoid, sometimes undivided, usually pinnatilobed to pinnatisect, sometimes lyrate-runcinate (lobes in lower ca. 1/2); lateral lobes 4 or 5, triangular to deltoid, ± patent to subrecurved, distal margin usually convex to ± sigmoid and subentire, apex acute; interlobes ca. 10 × 5-8 mm, margin entire or sparsely denticulate; terminal lobe flat-triangular to flat-deltoid, margin entire, apex mucronate. Scapes pale green at base but brownish green above, usually overtopping leaves, floccose-arachnoid and densely so below capitulum. Capitulum 2.5-3.5 cm wide. Involucre 9-10 mm wide, base rounded to slightly obconic. Outer phyllaries (12 or)13-15(or 16), light green, ± not imbricate, ovate-lanceolate to lanceolate, outermost ones 5.5-8 × 2-3 mm and 2/5-2/3 as long as inner ones, loosely appressed, erect to rarely irregularly patent, border ± distinct, whitish membranous, and 0.3-0.5(-0.9) mm wide, margin ± glabrous, apex suffused red with a short obtuse horn to 1 mm; inner phyllaries 1.3-1.5 cm, callose to minutely (ca. 0.3 mm) corniculate near apex. Ligules yellow; outer ligules ± flat, outside broadly striped grayish pink; inner ligules with dirty yellow or pinkish apical teeth. Stigmas dirty yellow to slightly greenish yellow. Anthers polliniferous; pollen grains irregular in size. Achene grayish pale brown, (3.6-)4.2-4.5(-5) × (0.8-)0.9-1.2 mm; body densely spinulose in upper 1/3-1/5, subgradually to subabruptly narrowing into a thin ± cylindric (0.7-)1.1-1.6 mm cone, spinules distinct, ± long, acute; beak (6-)6.5-7.5(-8) mm. Pappus white, 5-6.5 mm. Fl. spring and early summer. Agamosperm. 2n = 24.

Meadows and pastures, usually on subsaline soils; 1500-2000 m. W Xinjiang [Kazakhstan].

Taraxacum brevicorniculatum is often a weed in plantations of T. koksaghyz in Russia and other countries where T. koksaghyz is grown as a source of biosynthetic rubber. Taraxacum brevicorniculatum is often mistakenly equated or confused with the sexual diploid T. koksaghyz of T. sect. Ceratoidea, which can be distinguished by purely yellow stigmas, fleshy glaucous grayish green leaves, obtuse leaf lobes, outer phyllaries with thin mostly 2.5-4 mm horns, inner phyllaries with thin mostly 1.7-2 mm horns, regular pollen, and achenes 2.8-3.8 × 0.7-0.9 mm with a beak to 4.5 mm. Taraxacum brevicorniculatum also has a much lower root rubber content. Genetic analyses (P. van Dijk, unpubl.) show that the triploid T. brevicorniculatum is a hybridogenous species with T. koksaghyz as one of the parental taxa. Taraxacum brevicorniculatum is in many respects intermediate between T. sect. Ceratoidea and T. sect. Qaisera.