东天山蒲公英 dong tian shan pu gong ying

Herbs 5-12 cm tall. Petiole pale green, ± unwinged; leaf blade probably mid-green, oblanceolate, 6-8 × 1.5-2 cm, glabrous, pinnatilobed, midvein pale green; lateral lobes 2 or 3 pairs, triangular to deltoid, to 1 cm, usually patent, margin usually entire; interlobes short, broad, margin ± entire; terminal lobe triangular. Scapes brownish green, ± equaling leaves, glabrous. Capitulum 2-3 cm wide. Involucre 8-11 mm wide, base rounded. Outer phyllaries 11-14, almost black, ± imbricate, ovate to ovate-lanceolate, outermost ones 5-7 × 2.5-4 mm and ca. 1/2 as long as inner ones, ± appressed to suberect, unbordered, margin ± glabrous, flat below apex; inner phyllaries 1.3-1.7 cm, flat below apex. Ligules yellow; outer ligules outside striped grayish pink; inner ligules with purple to blackish teeth. Stigmas blackish green. Anthers polliniferous. Achene grayish straw-colored brown, 4.5-5.2 × 0.9-1 mm; body ± smooth or apically very sparsely minutely tuberculate, very indistinctly and gradually narrowing into a broadly conic 0.6-0.9 mm cone or cone not discernible at all; beak 4-5 mm, thick. Pappus ± white, 6-7 mm. Fl. summer.

● Alpine slopes; ca. 3500 m. W Xinjiang (Tian Shan).

Taraxacum sinotianschanicum is known from the type specimen only. It deviates from the most common pattern of T. sect. Atrata in having outer phyllaries ± imbricate and of a broader shape.