头花独行菜 tou hua du xing cai

Lepidium kunlunshanicum G. L. Zhou & Z. X. An.

Herbs annual or biennial, (5-)10-35(-50) cm tall, densely covered with capitate or clavate papillate trichomes. Stems prostrate or rarely suberect, branched basally and above. Basal and lower cauline leaves with petioles 0.5-4 cm; leaf blade oblong, spatulate, or lanceolate, (0.5-)1-4(-7) × 0.2-2 cm, usually glabrous, pinnatifid, base attenuate; lobes oblong, lanceolate, or linear, 2-8(-15) × 0.5-3(-5) mm, 1- or 2-pinnatifid or -partite, serrate, or entire. Upper cauline leaves shortly petiolate or subsessile, similar to lowermost leaves, progressively smaller upward. Racemes capitate, elongated slightly or not elongated in fruit. Fruiting pedicels slender, divaricate, slightly recurved or straight, (1-)2-3(-4) mm, puberulent adaxially with clavate or capitate trichomes. Sepals oblong, 0.8-1 × 0.3-0.4(-0.5) mm, glabrous or with crisped trichomes. Petals white, narrowly obovate, (0.5-)0.6-0.9(-1) × 0.2-0.3 mm, base cuneate, apex subtruncate or emarginate. Stamens 4; filaments 0.8-1 mm; anthers ovate, 0.1-0.2 mm. Fruit broadly ovate, 1.8-2.5 × 1.7-1.8 mm, glabrous; wing apical, 0.1-0.3 mm; apical notch 0.05-0.3 mm; style obsolete, rarely to 0.15 mm, included in apical notch. Seeds brown, oblong-ovate, 1-1.1 × 0.6-0.7 mm; cotyledons incumbent. Fl. and fr. Jun-Sep.

Mountain slopes, disturbed areas, plains; 2700-5000 m. Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan, Xinjiang, Xizang, Yunnan [Bhutan, India, Kashmir, Nepal, Sikkim].