珠峰鳞蕊芥 zhu feng lin rui jie

Herbs perennial, 3-4 cm tall, pilose, with a slender, rhizomelike caudex. Trichomes almost exclusively simple, to 1 mm, rarely a few forked ones present. Basal leaves rosulate, persistent; petiole 0.5-4 mm; leaf blade ovate or oblong, 2-6 × 1-3 mm, densely pilose, base obtuse, margin entire, apex obtuse. Cauline leaves and bracts similar to basal leaves but smaller. Racemes 6-12-flowered, bracteate throughout, slightly elongated in fruit; bracts adnate to pedicels. Fruiting pedicels ascending-divaricate, straight, 2-3 mm. Sepals oblong, ca. 3 × 1 mm, spreading, sparsely pubescent, persistent. Petals whitish, obovate, ca. 5 × 2.5 mm, apex rounded; claw 2-3 mm. Filaments persistent; median pairs ca. 3.5 mm, winged and ca. 0.5 mm wide basally, minutely toothed below middle; lateral pair ca. 3 mm, slender, wingless; anthers oblong, 0.7-0.9 mm. Ovules ca. 8 per ovary. Fruit linear-oblong, ca. 7 × 1.5 mm, terete; valves torulose, densely pubescent, obscurely veined; septum complete; style ca. 0.7 mm; stigma minute, entire. Seeds ovate, ca. 1.4 mm; cotyledons accumbent. Fl. and fr. Jul.

* Scree; ca. 6400 m. Xizang.

Lepidostemon everestianus, which is known only from the type gathering, Shipton s.n. (holotype, BM), grows at altitudes higher than those reached by any other species of the Brassicaceae.