银鳞紫菀 yin lin zi wan

Shrubs, 100-200 cm tall. Stems multibranched; old branches gray-brown or reddish brown, shallowly striate, leaf scars and axillary buds prominent; current-year branches short, slender, densely leafy, white tomentose. Leaves petiolate (petiole 1-3 mm); blade abaxially ± white, adaxially green, elliptic, oblong, or lanceolate-ovate, 1-4 × 0.5-1.5 cm, subleathery, abaxially gray-white arachnoid-tomentose or cottony, adaxially moderately scabridulous, minutely glandular, resin-dotted, scabrous, midvein abaxially prominent, lateral veins apparent, pinnate, 4-6 pairs, base cuneate, margin revolute, entire, subundulate, apex acute to obtuse, mucronulate. Capitula 4-20, in corymbiform synflorescences terminal on axillary branches, 1.5-2 cm in diam.; peduncles slender, 0.5-5 mm, densely tomentose, minutely glandular; bracts linear. Involucres campanulate, 4-6 mm; phyllaries 4- or 5-seriate, unequal; outer phyllaries broadly lanceolate, 1.5-2 × ca. 0.5 mm, abaxially sparsely tomentulose proximally to glabrate, margin narrowly scarious, erose, ciliate, midvein pronounced, swollen; middle phyllaries lanceolate, 3.5-4 × 1-1.2 mm; inner phyllaries linear-lanceolate, 4-5 × 0.5-0.6 mm, margin scarious, erose, ciliate, apex acute, green or purple-red. Ray florets 15-20, white, tube sparsely hairy, lamina ca. 4 × 1.5 mm, glabrous, eglandular; disk florets yellow, 4.5-5 mm, tube sparsely hairy distally, limb narrowly campanulate, ca. 2.5 mm, sparsely glandular, lobes reflexed, triangular, 1-1.2 mm. Achenes reddish brown, cylindric, 2-2.7 mm (?immature), strigillose, translucent 6-veined. Pappus 3-seriate, dirty white; outer bristles few, slender, 0.3-0.6 mm; inner bristles ca. 2.5 mm, acute; innermost bristles ca. 4.5 mm, clavate. Fl. May-Oct, fr. Aug-Oct.

● Alpine and subalpine slopes, forests, grasslands, riverbanks; 2000-2800 m. Sichuan, Xizang, NW Yunnan.

Lower Taxa

• Aster argyropholis var. argyropholis
• Aster argyropholis var. niveus Y. Ling
• Aster argyropholis var. paradoxus Y. Ling