雪地棘豆 xue di ji dou

Oxytropis oligantha Bunge.

Herbs, (1.5-)2-6 cm tall, acaulescent, from a multiheaded caudex, tuft- or cushion-forming, with dense silvery white tri­chomes. Caudex branches with persistent petioles. Stipules broadly ovate with a triangular free part, herbaceous, with ap­pressed white trichomes, adnate to petiole, apex acute. Leaves (0.5-)1-3 cm; petiole and rachis with appressed, spreading, or ascending white trichomes; leaflets verticillate, in 6-12 whorls, 4-6 blades per whorl; leaflet blades narrowly ovate to lanceo­late, 1-3.5 × 0.5-1.5 mm. Racemes 1- or 2(or 3)-flowered; pe­duncle obsolete or to as long as leaves, spreading silvery white villous and apically mixed with blackish trichomes; bracts lan­ceolate, 4-7 × 1-3 mm, whitish and blackish villous. Calyx cylindric, 10-15 × 2-4 mm, with whitish cottonlike trichomes and sometimes mixed with black trichomes; lobes linear-lan­ceolate, 4-5 × ca. 0.5 mm, apex obtuse. Corolla bluish purple; standard 1.4-2.2 cm, lamina ovate, apex emarginate; wings 1.4-1.7 cm, lamina apically truncate; keel (1.2-)1.4-1.6 cm, beak 0.5-1 mm. Legume sessile, ellipsoid, ovoid, or oblong-ovoid, 1.3-2 × 0.5-0.7 cm, slightly inflated, leathery to thinly leathery, ± 2-locular, appressed to spreading white and black villous, beak ca. 2 mm. Fl. Jun-Jul, fr. Jul-Aug.

Base and top of hills, grasslands, gravelly alpine slopes; 2500-4600 m. Xinjiang (Tian Shan) [Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan].