青海猪毛菜 qing hai zhu mao cai

Herbs annual, 40-50 cm tall. Stem branched from base, green, white striate, densely hispid. Leaves alternate, semiterete, 2-3 cm × 1.5-3 mm, fleshy, hispid, base expanded, apex hardened mucronate. Inflorescence terminal, spikelike; flowers solitary; bracts broadly lanceolate, longer than bractlets, apex elongate, spinose mucronate; bractlets spreading, lanceolate. Perianth (including wings) 10-12 mm in diam. in fruit; segments lanceolate, membranous, hardened in fruit, abaxially winged from proximal middle part; portion of segment above wing connivent with others into a long cone, subleathery, densely very shortly hispid, apex acute, thinly mucronate; 3 wings semiorbicular, with veins united at base, margin irregularly toothed; other 2 wings narrower. Anthers oblong, ca. 1 mm. Stigmas filiform, 2-3 × as long as style. Seed horizontal, ca. 2 mm in diam. Fl. Jul-Aug, fr. Aug-Sep.

* Saline soils in meadows. Qinghai (Qaidam Pendi).

Salsola chinghaiensis may be a synonym of S. ikonnikovii (see Rilke, Biblioth. Bot. 149: 152. 1999).