阿拉善碱蓬 a la shan jian peng

Herbs annual, green, purplish, or reddish purple, 20-40 cm tall. Stems several, prostrate or decumbent, branched, usually somewhat curved, terete; branches sparse, slender. Leaves sessile or subsessile, appearing somewhat ovoid, 1-1.5 cm × ca. 5 mm at widest point, fleshy, succulent, base attenuate, apex rounded. Glomerules borne in leaf axils and on dwarf, axillary branchlets, usually 3-10-flowered; bractlets entire at margin. Flowers bisexual and female. Perianth depressed subglobose, 5-parted; segments broadly ovate, with narrowly triangular, unequal wings extending at base abaxially in fruit. Anthers oblong, ca. 0.5 mm. Stigmas 2, minute. Utricle enclosed by perianth; pericarp adnate to seed. Seed horizontal, reniform or subglobose, ca. 0.5 mm, margin obtuse; testa black, scarcely lustrous, thinly leathery or membranous, clearly foveolate pitted. Fl. and fr. Jun-Oct.

Inter-dunes, lake shores, saline-alkaline bottomlands. W Gansu, W Nei Mongol, Ningxia [Mongolia].