衰老葶苈 shuai lao ting li

Draba composita O. E. Schulz; D. piepunensis O. E. Schulz.

Herbs perennial, 1-5 cm tall, cespitose, surculose, scapose. Caudex with many, slender branches terminated in rosettes and covered with petiolar remains of previous years. Stems erect, simple, often densely subhirsute with primarily simple and smaller, subsessile forked trichomes, sometimes with few stellate trichomes. Basal leaves rosulate, persistent; petiole 1-5(-8) mm, persistent and becoming stramineous, often ciliate with simple, setose or subsetose trichomes to 1.4 mm; leaf blade oblong, elliptic, or narrowly obovate, 3-10(-15) × (1-)2-4(-7) mm, densely pubescent with whitish, long-stalked, stellate and forked trichomes, adaxially villous with predominantly simple trichomes, rarely softly stellate, base cuneate, margin entire, apex obtuse to subacute. Cauline leaves absent. Racemes 3-7(-12)-flowered, ebracteate, elongated slightly in fruit. Fruiting pedicels 3-9(-12) mm, divaricate or divaricate-ascending, straight or rarely slightly curved, pubescent all around. Sepals oblong or ovate, 2-2.5 × 1-1.5 mm, erect, abaxially sparsely pilose or glabrous, base of lateral pair not saccate, margin narrowly membranous. Petals yellow, obovate, 4-6 × 2-3(-3.5) mm, rounded; claw to 1 mm. Filaments 2.5-3 mm; anthers oblong, 0.5-0.6 mm. Ovules 6-10 per ovary. Fruit ovate, 4-7 × 3-5 mm, latiseptate, not twisted; valves glabrous, not veined, base obtuse, apex acute; style 0.5-0.8 mm. Seeds dark brown, ovate, 1.5-2 × 1-1.5 mm. Fl. May-Jul, fr. Jul-Sep.

* Rocky crevices, alpine meadows; 4000-4900 m. Qinghai, Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan.

A detailed study of the type collections of Draba senilis, Rock 3968 (holotype, B; isotypes, E, GH, P, PE, US, W), and D. piepunensis, Handel-Mazzetti 4712 (holotype, B; isotypes, W, WU), leads to the immediate conclusion that they are flowering and fruiting material (respectively) of the same species.

The above first record from Sichuan is based on Rock 16320 (E, F, GH, NY, P, US, W), collected from Gongga Shan. Draba senilis was recorded, as D. piepunensis, from Qinghai (Fl. Qinghai. 1: 438. 1997), and that record is here confirmed based on Wang Weiyi 234a (HNWP).