短梗鹤虱 duan geng he shi

Herbs biennial. Stems erect, much branched from base, ca. 45 cm tall, densely gray-white spreading or appressed hispid; branches slender, obliquely spreading. Basal leaves numerous, forming a rosette, sessile; leaf blade linear to lanceolate, 2-3 cm × ca. 5 mm, densely gray-white hirsute, apex obtuse. Inflorescences to 7-15 cm in fruit; bracts 1 or 2, leaflike, basal, other bracts extremely small. Pedicel erect, to 1-2(-3) mm in fruit, densely hispid. Calyx lobes spreading, linear, ca. 1 mm, to 2 mm in fruit. Corolla light blue, campanulate, ca. 2.5 mm; tube ca. as long as calyx; throat appendages light yellow, trapeziform, ca. 0.5 mm; limb (3-)4-5 mm wide; lobes suborbicular. Style slightly surpassing nutlets but not surpassing prickles. Fruit globose, 2.5-3 mm; nutlets ovoid, adaxially with dense fine tubercles; disc narrowly ovate, tuberculate, center line keeled and with 3 or 4 glochids; marginal glochids in 2 rows; inner glochids 1.5-2.5 mm, bases slightly widened but free; outer glochids ca. 0.5 mm. 2n = 22.

Mountainsides; ca. 1800 m. Xinjiang (Wuqia Xian) [Kazakh-stan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan].