野茼蒿 ye tong hao

Gynura crepidioides Bentham in Hooker, Niger Fl. 438. 1849.

Plants erect, 20-120 cm tall. Stems striate, glabrous. Leaf petiole 2-2.5 cm; blade elliptic or oblong-elliptic, 7-12 × 4-5 cm, membranous, both surfaces glabrous or subglabrous, base cuneate, margin irregularly serrate or double-serrate, sometimes pinnately lobed at base, apex acuminate. Capitula several to numerous in terminal corymbiform cymes, shortly pedunculate, 3-5 mm in diam. Involucres cylindric, 1-1.2 cm, basally truncate, with few unequal linear bracteoles; bracts of calyculus 6-21, 2-6 mm; phyllaries uniseriate, linear-lanceolate, equal, ca. 1.5 mm wide, margin narrowly scarious, apically puberulent. Florets tubular, bisexual; corolla red-brownish or orange, rarely yellow, 8-10 mm; lobes 5, ca. 1 mm. Style branches acute, papillose. Achenes brownish, narrowly oblong, 1.8-2.3 mm, ribbed, hairy. Pappus 7-13 mm, early deciduous. Fl. Jul-Dec.

Slopes, roadsides, streamsides, thickets; 300-1800 m. ?Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Hunan, Hubei, ?Jiangsu, Jiangxi, ?Shaanxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Xizang, Yunnan, ?Zhejiang [native to Africa; pantropical weed of Africa, S and SE Asia, Australia, Central and South America, and Pacific islands].

Crassocephalum crepidioides is used medicinally to invigorate the spleen and treat indigestion; the young leaves are an edible wild vegetable.