蓝花毛鳞菊 lan hua mao lin ju

Sonchus cyaneus D. Don, Prodr. Fl. Nepal. 164. 1825; Chaetoseris cyanea (D. Don) C. Shih; C. hastata (Candolle) C. Shih; C. hispida C. Shih; Cicerbita cyanea (D. Don) Beauverd; C. cyanea var. glandulifera (Franchet) Beauverd; C. cyanea var. hastata (Candolle) Beauverd; Lactuca funebris W. W. Smith; L. hastata Candolle; L. hastata var. glandulifera Franchet; Melanoseris hastata (Candolle) Edgeworth; Mulgedium cyaneum (D. Don) Candolle.

Herbs 0.8-1.8 m tall, perennial. Root slenderly turniplike. Stem solitary, erect, branched apically, ± glabrous to densely covered with purplish to brownish glandular hairs. Lower and middle stem leaves with petiole to 12 cm, narrowly winged, not or rarely very faintly sagittately clasping; leaf blade ovate to triangular, 5-11 × 3.5-8.5 cm, undivided or with 1 pair of ± elliptic lateral lobes, margin coarsely dentate, base of blade or terminal lobe cuneate, truncate, cordate, or hastate, apex acute. Upper stem leaves shortly petiolate to sessile; leaf blade similar to middle stem leaves but smaller, narrowly elliptic, undivided to shallowly pinnatifid. Synflorescence paniculiform, often with rather long virgate branches, with several to numerous capitula. Capitula with usually 20-30 florets. Involucre cylindric, 1.3-1.7 × 0.5-0.8 cm. Phyllaries with midvein white or purplish hispid except in innermost ones, apex acute; outer phyllaries triangular-ovate to lanceolate. Florets blue to purplish. Achene 7-8 mm; body dark brown, ellipsoid, compressed, lateral ribs broadened, apex attenuate into a pale 2-3 mm slender beak. Pappus double, outer hairs 0.1-0.3 mm, bristles ca. 7 mm. Fl. and fr. Sep-Nov. 2n = 16*.

Moist places under forests, thickets in mountain valleys, forest margins, grassy slopes, wastelands on mountain slopes; 1500-3100 m. Chongqing, Guizhou, Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan [Bhutan, N India, Kashmir, Myanmar, Nepal].

Plants with less glandular hairy to almost glabrous branches, as they occur in various species besides strongly glandular plants, were originally described as Lactuca hastata and recognized as Chaetoseris hastata in FRPS (80(1): 275. 1997) but have been considered as conspecific with C. cyanea by most authors, a treatment which is also followed here. Plants from Chongqing earlier described as a separate species, C. hispida, were later recognized by its author as conspecific with C. cyanea, and the name was sunk in the synonymy of that species.