五裂兔儿风 wu lie tu er feng

Ainsliaea liukiuensis Beauverd; A. macroclinidioides Hayata var. secundiflora (Hayata) Kitamura; A. secundiflora Hayata.

Plants perennial, 8-30 cm tall. Leaves basally clustered; petiole 1.5-6 cm, wingless, strigose; leaf blade deeply palmately lobed, with apical lobe elongate (1-)2.5-3.5 × (1-)2-3 cm, papery, blackish green, pale opaque abaxially, slightly glossy adaxially, sparsely strigose on both surfaces; cauline leaves few, much reduced, alternate, shortly petiolate to sessile, ovate to ovate-lanceolate. Capitula subsessile, arranged in spikes, 3-flowered; involucre narrowly obdeltate, ca. 3 mm in diam.; phyllaries 5- or 6-seriate, papery, glabrous, outer phyllaries ovate, ca. 2 mm, inner linear, ca. 10 mm. Florets bisexual, cleistogamous, corolla closed, tubular, minutely 5-lobed, 5-6 mm, hidden in pappus. Achenes narrowly oblong, ca. 5 mm, shortly pilose. Pappus ca. 9 mm. Fl. Feb-Mar, Aug-Oct.

Low hills, mountain slopes. Taiwan [Japan].

This variety is quite different from Ainsliaea apiculata var. apiculata and A. apiculata var. ovatifolia Masamune, both found in Japan, in its leaf blades deeply lobed with elongated apical lobe (vs. leaf blades 5-angled or shallowly 5-lobed in A. apiculata var. apiculata and ovate in A. apiculata var. ovatifolia).

Ainsliaea secundiflora was treated under A. macroclinidioides in FRPS (79: 60. 1996, as A. macroclinidioides var. secundiflora). However, analysis of the type specimen of A. secundiflora (Nakahara 922) confirms that it possesses leaves similar to those of A. apiculata, i.e., leaf blades palmately lobed (vs. not lobed in A. macroclinidioides).