Herbs, perennial, rarely annual or biennial, or subshrubs with somewhat woody rhizome. Stems erect or rosette-forming, simple or branching, densely white or ash-gray cottony tomentose. Leaves simple, alternate, rarely subopposite to opposite, sessile or petiolate or decurrent, oblong or lanceolate, entire. Capitula with many florets, 3-15 mm in diam., subglobose campanulate or subfunnelform, arranged in corymbiform or paniculate-corymbiform branched synflorescences, rarely solitary or 2 or 3 per synflorescence. Plants dioecious or heterogamous, having different types of florets: bisexual sterile florets with predominance of female florets arranged in many marginal rows and 1 to few central male florets, or many marginal rows of male florets and a few central female florets. Involucre campanulate, turbinate, or semispherical, base tomentose; phyllaries many seriate, imbricate, erect or expanding, scarious, lower parts brown, 1-veined, upper parts usually scarious, white or yellowish white or rarely pinkish. Receptacle subconvex or flat, alveolate, without squamules. Male florets: corolla tubular, 5-denticulate; stamens basally arrow-shaped with acerose tail; stigma with 2 short lobes, apex truncate. Female florets: corolla filiform, basally slightly dilated, 2-4-denticulate; style branches long, apex subrounded. Achene oblong or subrounded, with glandular hairs or mammilla or almost glabrous, in predominantly female capitula; achenes of male florets vestigial and usually absent in predominantly male capitula. Pappus in both florets consisting of 1 row of free deciduous white hairs, almost equal to corolla, scabrid, pinnate-incrassate at tip of apex in male florets, filiform and almost smooth or slightly scabrid at tip in female florets.

Species incertae sedis

Anaphalis horaimontana Masamune, Trans. Nat. Hist. Soc. Formosa 26: 57. 1936.

大山香青 da shan xiang qing

Stems unbranched, erect, ca. 10 cm, densely tomentose, base ca. 1 mm in diam., foliose, apex ascending corymbiform branched. Basal leaves rosulate, small, obovate, withered by anthesis, both surfaces gray tomentose; middle leaves spatulate, 12-14 × 3-3.5 mm, both surfaces densely tomentose, base attenuate, almost sheathlike, apex obtuse; upper leaves linear, 5-6 mm. Capitula 6, corymbiform, pedunculate. Involucre campanulate-globose, ca. 6 × 6 mm, base rounded, densely lanate; phyllaries imbricate, 6-seriate; outer phyllaries red-brown, ovate-lanceolate, apex acuminate or obtuse; inner ones white, apex obtuse. Capitula with many marginal female florets, corolla filiform, ca. 3.5 mm; bisexual florets few, corolla tubular, ca. 3.5 mm, apex 5-denticulate. Pappus in female florets ca. 3.5 mm, in male florets ca. 3.7 mm, apex scabrid, not clavate. Ovary small, puberulent.

● Alpine grasslands. Taiwan.

Specimens of this species were not seen by the present authors. The above description is based on the original literature.

About 110 species: mainly in tropical and subtropical Asia, but a few species also in temperate Asia, Europe, and North America; 54 species (40 endemic) in China; one additional species (endemic, not included in the key) is of uncertain position.

(Authors: Zhu Shixin (朱世新); Randall J. Bayer)