小花玄参 xiao hua xuan shen

Herbs, slender, 3-20 cm tall. Rhizomes slender, ca. 5 mm in diam., often with globose nodules. Stems erect or bent and ascending, pilose. Leaf blade ovate to triangular-ovate, rarely oblong-ovate, abaxially pilose on veins, adaxially appressed white hairy, base cuneate to truncate, margin irregularly and obtusely coarsely toothed. Thyrses terminal, narrow, lax; cymes mostly 3-flowered, opposite; peduncle slender, to 1.7 cm. Pedicel ca. 2 mm, glandular hairy. Calyx hooded, ca. 1 mm; lobes triangular-ovate. Corolla green, ca. 2 mm; tube globose; throat brownish; lower lip conspicuously shorter than upper lip, with much smaller lobes; upper lip lobes orbicular, margins not overlapping. Stamens included; staminode subglobose to reniform. Ovary ca. 0.7 mm. Style slightly longer than ovary. Capsule narrowly ovoid, 4-5 mm. Fl. and fr. Jun-Jul.

* Grassland on mountain slopes; ca. 3700 m. S Gansu, E Qinghai, W Sichuan.