松叶鸡蛋参 song ye ji dan shen

Codonopsis convolvulacea Kurz var. pinifolia (Handel-Mazzetti) Nannfeldt; C. limprichtii Lingelsheim & Borza var. pinifolia Handel-Mazzetti.

Plants glabrous throughout. Roots ovoid or oblong, 0.8-1.5 cm in diam. Stems decumbent below, twining only at upper part, sometimes suberect, up to 1 m, simple or branched. Cauline leaves alternate, usually aggregated at lower part, sessile, linear to linear-lanceolate, 2-10.5 × 0.1-1 cm, base cuneate, margin entire, often recurved toward lateral sides, apex acuminate. Flowers solitary, terminal. Calyx tube adnate to ovary up to top of ovary, obconical; lobes narrowly triangular, 4-10 × 2-3 mm, entire. Corolla blue or purple, divided to near base; lobes elliptic, 8-26 × 4-12 mm. Filaments dilated at base, densely white villous on sides; anthers ca. 3 mm. Capsule obconical and ca. 6 mm in diam. at inferior part, broadly conical at superior part. Seeds numerous, brown-yellow. Fl. Jul-Sep, fr. Sep-Oct.

● Pinus forests, thickets, open grassy slopes; 1500-3300 m. W Guizhou (Weining), SW Sichuan, N Yunnan.

Two of us (Lammers and Klein) regard Codonopsis graminifolia and C. limprichtii var. pinifolia as synonyms of C. limprichtii because we can discern no way to distinguish C. limprichtii from the other two entities; see Lammers and Klein (Bot. Stud. (Taipei) 51: 553-561. 2010). However, one of us (Hong) notes that the description in the protologue of C. limprichtii (Lingelsheim & Borza, Repert. Spec. Nov. Regni Veg. 13: 391-392. 1914; "... Folia. ..... inferiora ovalia, parce obtuse dentata, ad 3 cm longa, 2 cm lata, superiora lanceolata, integerrima, ad 5 cm longa et 1 cm lata,. ..") and the isotype, H. W. Limpricht 851 (WU), represent a broader-leaved entity rather than the narrow-leaved plant described here as C. graminifolia. Therefore, C. graminifolia and C. limprichtii cannot be conspecific, and the latter is instead treated here in the synonymy of C. convolvulacea subsp. forrestii.