云南钩毛草 yun nan gou mao cao

Galium aberrans W. W. Smith.

Herbs, perennial, to 30 cm tall. Stems flattened to subterete, puberulent to villosulous or hirtellous. Leaves subsessile or with petiole to 1 mm; blade drying thinly papery and blackish, narrowly lanceolate to narrowly elliptic, oblanceolate, or obovate, 5-15 × 2-5 mm, adaxially sparsely strigillose to villosulous, abaxially glabrous except sparsely to densely puberulent to hirtellous along midrib, base cuneate to acute, apex obtuse to acute; 1 main vein, secondary veins not or hardly visible; stipules 1.5-4 mm, often irregularly 3-7-lobed, triangular to linear, tomentulose or villosulous to glabrescent. Inflorescences 1-12 cm, axes strigillose to villosulous, 3-20-flowered; bracts stipuliform, 1-2 mm; pedicels 2-3 mm. Calyx split essentially to base, lobes 5, narrowly triangular, 0.5-1 mm. Corolla white to pink or red, outside puberulent or hispidulous; tube 2-2.5 mm; lobes 5, lanceolate, 2-2.5 mm, acute. Ovary ellipsoid, 1-1.5 mm, densely hairy with hooked trichomes 0.5-1 mm. Mericarps ovoid, ca. 2.5 mm, densely covered with hooked trichomes of 0.5-1 mm. Fl. Jul, fr. Jul-Sep.

Dry to wet mountain grasslands, along trails, forest and thicket openings; 3000-3700 m. Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan [Bhutan].

Springate et al. (Fl. Bhutan 2(2): 822. 1999) noted that this species was collected once in Bhutan, at 3680 m, and that it is known from Xizang also. We have seen no material or other citations from Xizang, but this distribution seems reasonable and is added here.