细毛拉拉藤 xi mao la la teng

Herbs, perennial, procumbent and ascending, caespitose, (5-)10-20(-40) cm tall. Stems with 4 prominent whitish angles, variable from ± densely hispid with straight trichomes of ca. 0.8 mm to retrorsely (very rarely also antrorsely) aculeolate. Middle stem leaves in whorls of up to 5 or 6 (never only 4), subsessile; blade drying blackish, narrowly oblanceolate to narrowly lanceolate, (3-)5-10(-17) × 0.8-2(-4.2) mm, hispid, retrorsely aculeolate on midrib and margins or glabrescent, base cuneate, apex acute and shortly mucronate; vein 1, whitish. Inflorescences with axillary and/or terminal cymes, few to several flowered; peduncles divaricate, with leaflike bracts, 1-3 mm; pedicels 0.5-3 mm. Ovary ovoid, ca. 0.6 mm, densely hispidulous, glabrescent or glabrous. Corolla purple, yellowish green, or white, rotate, 2.5-3 mm in diam., glabrous or scaberulous inside; lobes 4, ovate, acute. Fruit subglobose, ca. 2 mm in diam., with dense to sparse ± uncinate trichomes 0.5-0.7 mm or glabrous and smooth. Fl. and fr. May-Aug.

Mountain slopes, open ground and grasslands; 2100-3900 m. Gansu, Nei Mongol, Ningxia, Qinghai, Shanxi, Sichuan, Xinjiang, Xizang [Bhutan, Nepal].

Galium pusillosetosum is an obvious alpine member of the G. asperifolium group (G. sect. Trachygalium s.l.). Main differential characters are its relatively dense leaf and stem indumentum and its conspicuous whitish stem angles. These separate it from G. acutum, G. baldensiforme, G. megacyttarion, G. rebae, G. glabriusculum, and G. sungpanense. Nevertheless, its variability with respect to leaf epidermal cell size, flower color, and ovary and fruit indumentum is remarkable.