沙生茜草 sha sheng qian cao

Plants herbaceous, perennial, with woody rootstock; stems suberect, to 1 m tall quadrangular, angles recurved prickly. Leaves in whorls of 4-6, subsessile; blade drying firmly leathery, lanceolate to elliptic-oblong, aculeolate abaxially on midrib and along thickened margins, base acute, apex acuminate; principal vein 1. Inflorescences terminal, many flowered, leafy and bracteose. Ovary 1-2 mm, glabrous. Corolla yellowish white, rotate, fused basal part ca. 0.3 mm; limb 3.5-4.5 mm in diam.; lobes lanceolate, aristate. Anthers very small, ca. 0.3 mm. Mericarp berry black, 3.5-5 mm in diam. Fl. Jun, fr. Jul.

Sandy and salty semideserts. Xinjiang (Yili) [Kazakhstan].

We have seen no authentic material of Rubia deserticola. This local C Asiatic semidesert species was regarded as close to the common Mediterranean R. peregrina Linnaeus by Pojarkova (loc. cit.) and placed into R. ser. Peregrinae Pojarkova of R. sect. Campylanthera.