2. Nabalus tatarinowii (Maximowicz) Nakai, Fl. Sylv. Kor. 14: 116. 1923.
盘果菊 pan guo ju
Herbs 0.5-2 mm tall, perennial. Stem solitary, erect, virgately branched usually in upper half, glabrous or subglabrous. Lower and middle stem leaves sparsely pilose with fine multicellular hairs and hispidulous with stiff subulate hairs; petiole 7-17 cm. Leaf blade of lower and middle stem leaves for subsp. tatarinowii either ovate to triangular-ovate, 5-15 × 6-15 cm, undivided, base cordate, hastate, truncate, or cuneate, margin subentire to sinuate-dentate with mucronate teeth, and apex acute to acuminate or leaf blade additionally with 1 pair of elliptic to obliquely ovate lateral lobes 0.6-5.5 × 0.4-4.5 cm. Leaf blade of lower and middle stem leaves for subsp. macrantha to 29 × 22 cm and divided; lateral lobes 1-3 pairs, elliptic, ovate, or lanceolate, much smaller than terminal lobe, margin subentire to coarsely sinuate-dentate with mucronate teeth, apex acute; terminal lobe broadly triangular-ovate, suborbicular, or broadly lanceolate in outline, pinnatipartite to pinnatisect with segments lanceolate, elliptic, or oblanceolate, base cordate to cuneate, margin coarsely sinuate-dentate with mucronate teeth, apex acute to acuminate. Upper and uppermost stem leaves similar to middle stem leaves in division but smaller and broadly triangular-ovate, linear-lanceolate, subrhombic, broadly ovate, or ovate, base truncate to cuneate, apex shortly to long acuminate. Synflorescence paniculiform, with some to many capitula. Capitula pendent at anthesis, erect in fruit, with ca. 5 florets; peduncle capillaceous, shorter than involucre, often densely pilose with multicellular hairs. Involucre narrowly cylindric, 10-13 × 1.5-2.5 mm. Outer phyllaries few, ovate to triangular-ovate, longest 2-3 mm, apex acute to obtuse; inner phyllaries 5, linear-lanceolate to linear, ± with scarious margin abaxially often sparsely pilose, apex obtuse to rounded. Florets pale purple, pink, whitish, or greenish. Anther tube brownish purple. Achene brown, 3.5-4.5 mm, apex truncate. Pappus brown to brick-colored, 6-8 mm.
Mountain slopes, forests in mountain valleys, forest margins, forests, grasslands, moist places by water, moist places with thick grass; 500-3000 m. Gansu, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Henan, Hubei, Jilin, Liaoning, Nei Mongol, Ningxia, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi, Sichuan, Yunnan [Korea, SE Russia].
Plants with ± deeply dissected terminal leaf lobe apparently occur in the central part of the distribution range of Nabalus tatarinowii, and they have been treated as a variety (N. tatarinowii var. divisa), subspecies (Prenanthes tatarinowii subsp. macrantha), or separate species (P. macrophylla). Stebbins (Contr. U.S. Natl. Herb. 28: 672. 1941) stated a correspondence of the pinnately lobed terminal leaf lobe with longer involucres (presumed to represent a tetraploid cytotype as inferred from pollen size). However, involucres to 1.3 cm also occur in plants with undivided terminal leaf lobes, and this corroborates Stebbins’s summarizing statement that the species "consists of a complex of closely interrelated diploid and polyploid forms" (loc. cit.). Today, still little is known about geographical and altitudinal distribution, ecology, and infrapopulational and interpopulational variation in this complex. For the time being, therefore, two entities are distinguished tentatively delimited by their conspicuous leaf features and, following Stebbins (loc. cit.), treated at the rank of subspecies. Prenanthes angustiloba and P. leptantha, each described on the basis of a single specimen from Sichuan with dissected leaves and delimited from this species by minor features of the leaf lobes, appear to fall within the range of variation of N. tatarinowii subsp. macrantha.
