异苞蒲公英 yi bao pu gong ying

Herbs 11-20 cm tall. Petiole pale green or purplish, sparsely arachnoid at very base but otherwise glabrous, unwinged; leaf blade mid-green, narrowly oblong, 7-16 × 1.2-2.4 cm, sparsely arachnoid, pinnatipartite; lateral lobes 3-5 pairs, ± linear, 8-16 × 1.2-2.3 mm, ± patent, margin ± entire, apex acute; interlobes 3-12 × 1-2 mm, margin filiform-dentate or lobulate; terminal lobe 3-partite, margin of segments entire, apex acute. Scapes brownish green, ± overtopping leaves, arachnoid. Capitulum 3-3.5 cm wide. Involucre 0.9-1.1 cm wide, base rounded. Outer phyllaries 10-14, dark green, margin and apical part often purple, with a gradual transition into paler border and a sharply delimited whitish ca. 0.3 mm wide border, not imbricate, usually broadly lanceolate to narrowly ovate, outermost ones (6-)7-9 × (2-)2.5-4 mm and ca. 1/2 as long as inner ones, appressed, later to erect-patent, margin ± glabrous or sparsely ciliate, apex ± callose, rarely flat; inner phyllaries 1.4-1.6 cm, apex ± flat to corniculate. Ligules yellow; outer ligules ± flat, outside striped gray. Stigmas grayish green. Anthers polliniferous; pollen grains irregular in size. Achene light grayish straw-colored brown, 4.6-5 × 0.8-0.9 mm; body subsparsely spinulose above, gradually narrowing into a ± cylindric 0.9-1 mm cone, spinules long with longest ones to 0.5 mm, thin, erect-patent, acute, and some also on cone base; beak 1-1.1 cm, thin. Pappus ± white, ca. 7 mm. Fl. spring. Agamosperm.

● Steppe grasslands, pastures; below 100-300 m. Jilin, Liaoning, ?Nei Mongol.

The occurrence of Taraxacum multisectum in Nei Mongol is probably correct, but this record needs to be confirmed.

Taraxacum multisectum is similar to T. abax but substantially differs in having conspicuously long spinules on the achenes, longer beak, not horned, and seldom corniculate outer phyllaries.