Prenanthes glomerata Decaisne in Jacquemont, Voy. Inde 4(Bot.): 99. 1843; Crepis gillii S. Moore var. bellidifolia Handel-Mazzetti; C. glomerata (Decaisne) Bentham & J. D. Hooker; C. rosularis Diels; C. sorocephala Hemsley; Lactuca deasyi S. Moore; Soroseris bellidifolia (Handel-Mazzetti) Stebbins; S. deasyi (S. Moore) Stebbins; S. rosularis (Diels) Stebbins.
Herbs, perennial, rosulate. Taproot ramose or not ramose. Rosette shoot with conspicuous subterranean portion with cataphylls. Cataphylls below leaf rosette numerous, ovate, long ovate, or narrowly lanceolate, 7-15 × 3-5 mm, apex acute. Above-ground leaves in a dense to loose rosette, with ± winged petiole-like 1.5-6 cm base; bladelike portion spatulate, broadly elliptic, or obovate, 2-3.5 × 0.4-1 cm, white villous or glabrous, base cuneate, margin entire or weakly dentate. Synflorescence flat to ± hemispheric, 3-5 cm in diam., with numerous closely crowded capitula. Capitula with 4 or 5 florets; peduncle 2-15 mm. Involucre narrowly cylindric, 10-15 × 2-3 mm. Outer phyllaries linear, shorter or longer than inner ones, ca. 1 mm wide, pilose; inner phyllaries 4 or 5, pilose or rarely glabrous, apex obtuse, acute, or rounded. Florets yellow or rarely white. Anther tube yellowish, reddish, or blackish. Style yellowish, greenish, or blackish. Achene brown, narrowly obconical, 5-8 mm, subequally ribbed and between main ribs usually with 3 or 4 secondary ribs, apex ± truncate. Pappus whitish or straw-colored and grayish apically, 7-11 mm. Fl. and fr. May-Sep. 2n = 16*, 32*.
Meadows, scree slopes; 3200-5600 m. Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan, Xinjiang, Xizang, Yunnan [N India, Kashmir, Nepal, Pakistan].
Soroseris glomerata is here treated in a wider sense, rather representing a complex, and including three little-known entities, Soroseris bellidifolia, S. deasyi, and S. rosularis. Variation, distribution, and delimitation of taxa (probably most appropriately on subspecies rank) in this complex are insufficiently known at present and in need of revision.
