窄膜麻黄 zhai mo ma huang

Shrubs or subshrubs, to 50 cm; herbaceous branchlets green, 1-1.5 mm in diam., rigid, finely furrowed, internodes 4-6 cm. Leaves and bracts of cones with narrow, membranous margins. Leaves opposite or in whorls of 3. Pollen cones densely aggregated at nodes along branches, 5-6 mm; bracts in 2-4 pairs, connate for ca. 1/2 their length; anthers 6-8, shortly stipitate. Seed cones solitary or in clusters of 3 or 4; peduncle long, 1-5 cm; bracts in 3-5 pairs or whorls, free, margins prominent, broad, membranous, often erose, becoming red and fleshy at maturity; integument tube ca. 1.5 mm, slightly spirally twisted. Seeds 2 or 3, brown, ca. 4 mm. Pollination May, seed maturity Jul.

Sandy places; 500-700 m. Xinjiang [Kazakhstan, SW Mongolia]

H. Riedl notes that Ephedra lomatolepis has seed cones light brown and dry when mature, with bracts free (as in E. przewalskii), the membranous margins much wider than the herbaceous center. The characters of the male plant described here seem to apply to a taxon other than E. lomatolepis (which is endemic to the Balkhash area of Kazakhstan), possibly even to a new species.