草莓车轴草 cao mei che zhou cao

Perennial herbs, stoloniferous, glabrous or hairy. Stems prostrate or decumbent, 10-30(-50) cm, rooting at nodes. Leaves palmately 3-foliolate, long petiolate; stipules linear-lanceolate to lanceolate-ovate, 1-2 cm, membranous, base sheathing, tip acuminate to subulate; leaflets obovate to obo­vate-elliptic, ± sessile, (5-)10-25 × 5-15 mm, glabrous or sparsely pubescent on veins, lateral veins 10-15, base broadly cuneate, apex rounded, retuse. Flowers 10-30, in crowded hemispheric or ovoid heads, 0.8-2.5 cm; peduncle axillary, to 2 × petiole; involucral bracts fused, lobes lanceolate, entire or toothed. Calyx bilabiate, strongly inflated in fruit, veins reticu­late; teeth filiform, 2 upper longer than 3 lower, 2 upper and distal 1/2 of tube densely sericeous. Corolla white or pink, 6-8 mm; standard oblong. Ovary linear. Legume ovate-oblong, en­closed in inflated calyx. Seeds 1 or 2, brown, reniform. Fl. and fr. May-Aug.

Alkaline soils, swamps, ditches, roadsides. Xinjiang [N Africa, C and SW Asia, Europe].