宽苞水柏枝 kuan bao shui bai zhi

Myricaria germanica (Linnaeus) Desvaux var. bracteata (Royle) Franchet.

Shrubs, 0.5-3 m tall, much branched. Old branches gray-brown or purple-brown. Leaves dense on green branchlets of current year, ovate, ovate-lanceolate, linear-lanceolate, or narrowly oblong, 2-4(-7) × 0.5-2 mm, base slightly enlarged or not, margin often narrowly membranous, apex obtuse or acute. Racemes terminal on branches of current year, clustered into spike; bracts usually broadly ovate or elliptic, sometimes rhombic, 7-8 × 4-5 mm, base narrow, margin membranous, spreading or recurved, apex acuminate. Pedicels ca. 1 mm. Sepals lanceolate, oblong, or narrowly elliptic, ca. 4 × 1-2 mm, margin broadly membranous, apex obtuse or acute, often incurved. Petals pink, reddish, or purplish, obovate or obovate-oblong, 5-6 × 2-2.5 mm, base narrow, apex obtuse, often incurved, persistent in fruit. Stamens slightly shorter than petals; filaments ca. 1/2 or 2/3 united. Ovary conic, 4-6 mm; stigmas capitate. Capsule narrowly conic, 8-10 mm. Seeds narrowly oblong or narrowly obovate, 1-1.5 mm, apex awned; awns more than 1/2 white villous. Fl. Jun-Jul, fr. Aug-Sep.

Sandy places in river valleys, sandy places at lakesides, sandy places in Gobi Desert; 1100-3300 m. NW Gansu, Hebei, Nei Mongol, NW Ningxia, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Xinjiang, Xizang [Afghanistan, India, Kashmir, Mongolia, Pakistan; C Asia].

Qaiser (Pakistan J. Bot. 8: 201. 1976) treated this taxon as Myricaria germanica subsp. alopecuroides (Schrenk) Kitamura.