帚枝香青 zhou zhi xiang qing

Herbs, perennial, or subshrubs, woody at base; rootstock thickish, woody. Stems numerous, virgate, erect or ascending, thin, densely leafy, white tomentose, floriferous, branching in upper parts, 20-40(-50) cm; sterile shoots numerous and considerably less high. Leaves sessile, linear, 1-25 cm, both surfaces pubescent, apex acute, with very short cusp (mucronulate) or without cusp. Capitula dense, corymbiform or paniculate-corymbiform, terminal, often with elongate lower branches, 3-4 mm in diam., upper capitula short, lower ones elongate pedunculate, or globose-campanulate, numerous. Involucre: outer phyllaries oblong, others lanceolate-oblong, from base to middle tomentose, brown or brownish, toward apex glabrous, whitish, and obtuse, 3-4 mm. Receptacle lacunose, glabrous. Female florets ca. 3 mm, thinly tubular; stigma exserted, bipartite; pappus of thin hairs as long as corolla. Center of capitulum with 2-4 sterile bisexual broadly tubular florets, glandular at apex; pappus of hairs shortly pinnate at apex and somewhat exceeding corolla. Male florets ca. 3.5 mm, narrowly campanulate-tubular; corolla limb 5-partite, glandular at apex; pappus of short, pinnate hairs slightly shorter than corolla. Achenes brownish, oblong, ca. 0.75 mm. Fl. Jul-Oct.

3000-4000 m. Xinjiang, W Xizang [Kashmir, Nepal, Pakistan; C Asia, SW Asia (Iran)].

No Chinese specimens of this species were seen by the present authors. The above description was based on specimens from Kashmir.