凤仙花合冠鼠麴草属 feng xian hua he guan shu qu cao shu

Herbs, winter annual or biennial, 15-35(-50) cm tall, fibrous rooted. Stems ascending, white pannose. Leaves basal and cauline, basal leaves in rosettes, present at anthesis, blades bicolored on both surfaces, spatulate to oblanceolate-obovate, (1.5-)3-8(-12) cm × 6-15(-22) mm, abaxially closely white pannose, adaxially glabrous or glabrate; leaves distally gradually smaller, slightly succulent, margin often crenulate on drying. Capitula initially usually in dense, continuous, pressed spiciform arrays 2-20 cm × 10-14 mm, later branched, interrupted. Involucre cylindric-campanulate, 2.5-3 mm, base glabrous; phyllaries 4- or 5-seriate; outer ones purplish or rosy, elliptic-obovate to broadly ovate-elliptic, 1/4-1/3 as long as inner ones, apices rounded to obtuse; inner ones oblong, laminae brown hyaline, apices rounded to obtuse or blunt, apiculate. Bisexual florets 2 or 3. Corollas of all florets usually purplish distally. Achenes oblong-elliptic, 0.5-0.6 mm. Pappus white, ca. 2.5 mm, connate at base into a ring, deciduous. Fl. Apr-Jun. 2n = 28.

Waste fields, roadsides, ditches; 400-1400 m. Naturalized in Guizhou and Taiwan [native to South America; widely introduced in Asia, Caribbean, Europe, North America, Oceania, Pacific islands].

The present report of this species is its first record in mainland China.