白背蒲儿根 bai bei pu er gen

Senecio latouchei Jeffrey, Notes Roy. Bot. Gard. Edinburgh 9: 128. 1916.

Herbs, subscapigerous. Rhizomes 6-10 mm in diam., collar densely lanate-tomentose with long fulvous hairs and clad in persistent petiole bases. Stems solitary, slender, erect or somewhat flexuous, subscapiform, 15-35 cm tall, simple or branching into synflorescence, villous or floccose-tomentose, with brown or white hairs, glabrescent. Radical leaves few, rosulate, long petiolate; petiole 4-16 cm, villous, base slightly expanded; blade adaxially green, suborbicular, 2.5-5 × 3-6 cm, papery, abaxially densely villous, ± white tomentose, rarely glabrescent, adaxially villous with spreading hairs, palmately 5-7-veined, veins rather prominent, base cordate, margin palmately coarsely dentate or sublobed, with ovate-deltoid, conspicuous mucronulate teeth or lobes. Stem leaves 1-3; petiole 1.5-4 cm, basally auriculate; blades similar to basal ones, 1.5-3.3 × 1.5-3 cm. Uppermost stem leaves small, bractlike, 3-5-lobed, or sometimes entire, apically acute. Capitula usually 1-4, arranged in terminal corymbs, 2-2.5 cm in diam.; peduncles 2.5-6 cm, slender, sparsely tomentose or villous, glabrescent, bracteate at base, usually with 1 bracteole in upper part; bracts and bracteoles linear-subulate, 5-10 mm, acute or bracts sometimes lobed. Involucres campanulate, ca. 7 × 7 mm, not calyculate; phyllaries ca. 13, oblong-lanceolate, 6-7 × 1.5-2 mm, herbaceous, sparsely arachnoid to glabrous, inconspicuously 3-5-veined, margin broadly scarious, apically acute to obtuse, purplish red and ciliate. Ray florets 11-13; corolla tube 3.5-4 mm, glabrous; lamina yellow, oblong, 7-10 × 2.5-3 mm, 4-veined, apically 3-denticulate, obtuse. Disk florets many; corolla yellow, 4-5 mm, with 2-2.5 mm tube and campanulate limb; lobes lanceolate, 1-1.2 mm, apically acute. Anthers ca. 1.3 mm, basally obtuse, appendages ovate-triangular. Style branches ca. 0.8 mm. Achenes ca. 2 mm, puberulent, papillate. Pappus white, ca. 4 mm. Fl. Mar-May, fr. May-Jun. 2n = 48*.

● Wet places, canal sides, damp valleys, wet rocky cliffs, woods; 200-400 m. Fujian (Nanping, Shaowu, Wuyi), Jiangxi (Lichuan, Nanfeng, Ningdu).

Sinosenecio latouchei is closely related to S. jiuhuashanicus but differs in the stem slender, erect or flexuous; stem leaves 1-3; leaf blade adaxially villous with spreading hairs; and leaf auricles smaller in size.