11. Taraxacum sect. Ceratoidea Kirschner & Štepánek, Phyton (Horn). 48: 63. 2008.
角状蒲公英组 jiao zhuang pu gong ying zu
Leaves usually slightly fleshy, light green to pale glaucous-green, sometimes suffused bronze, not spotted, subglabrous. Outer phyllaries usually light to yellowish green with an indistinct paler or whitish border but often reddish near apex, usually appressed to loosely appressed or erect, ovate, lanceolate, or rarely linear-lanceolate, usually 4-6.5 × 1-3.5 mm, apex with horn or at least corniculate. Outer ligules usually pale yellow, outside striped faintly reddish. Stigmas pure yellow. Achene light grayish straw-colored brown, usually 3-5 mm, to 0.9 mm wide; body relatively densely spinulose above, gradually to subgradually narrowing into subconic to subcylindric (0.7-)0.8-1(-1.6) mm cone, spinules usually thin, straight, erect, and acute; beak (3.5-)5-7(-8.5) mm. Pappus white to snow white, usually 5-7 mm.
About six to eight species: centered in C Asia; two species in China.
Taraxacum glaucanthum (Ledebour) Candolle (Prodr. 7: 147. 1838, not Nakai & Koidzumi, 1936), another member of T. sect. Ceratoidea, was described from NE Kazakhstan in the vicinity of the Chinese border and might be detected in northwesternmost Xinjiang.
Taraxacum monochlamydeum Handel-Mazzetti (Monogr. Taraxacum, 43. 1907) was repeatedly reported to occur in Xinjiang (since G. E. Haglund in Persson, Bot. Not. 1938: 310. 1938). During that time, T. bicorne was believed to be a member of T. sect. Ceratophora (Handel-Mazzetti) A. P. Khokhrjakov (= T. sect. Borealia in the present treatment) and generally overlooked. Schischkin and Tzvelev (Fl. URSS 29: 483. 1964) recognized T. bicorne as a member of T. sect. Macrocornuta s.l. The Chinese material seen, partly also identified as T. monochlamydeum by G. E. Haglund, belongs to T. bicorne, and T. monochlamydeum probably is confined to more western parts of C Asia (being common in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan). The occurrence of T. monochlamydeum in China remains to be confirmed, and further study is needed.
