大刺蒲公英 da ci pu gong ying

Herbs 5-20 cm tall. Petiole purplish, ± unwinged but dilated at very base; leaf blade light green to grayish green, narrowly oblanceolate, 5-15 × 1.5-2 cm, subglabrous, remotely pinnatilobed, midvein pale green; lateral lobes 2 or 3(or 4) pairs, to 1 cm, narrow, usually recurved to patent, margin usually entire; interlobes long, margin entire; terminal lobe elongated, to 5 cm, margin usually entire. Scapes brownish green, ± overtopping leaves, sparsely arachnoid below capitulum. Capitulum 3-4 cm wide. Involucre 7-11 mm wide, base ± rounded. Outer phyllaries 14-18, pale green to deep green, ± not imbricate, linear-lanceolate, outermost ones 8-9 × 2.5-3.5 mm and ca. 4/5 as long as inner ones, ± loosely appressed with whitish narrow border 0.3-0.4 mm, margin ± glabrous, flat or indistinctly corniculate below apex; inner phyllaries 1.3-1.6 cm, flat to corniculate below apex. Ligules yellow; outer ligules flat, outside striped grayish pink; inner ligules with purple to blackish teeth. Stigmas discolored, brownish yellow. Anthers polliniferous; pollen grains probably slightly irregular in size. Achene (when unripe) yellowish straw-colored brown, 4-4.4 × 1.4-1.6 mm; body apically densely coarsely spinulose with acute spinules and squamules, ± tuberculate to smooth below, abruptly narrowing into a conic 1.1-1.3 mm cone; beak ca. 6 mm. Pappus dirty white, ca. 5 mm. Fl. summer. Probably agamosperm.

● Mountain grasslands; probably above 2500 m. N Gansu.

Taraxacum kozlovii is known only from the type specimen.