茂汶蟹甲草 mao wen xie jia cao

Rhizomes short, stout, ca. 1 cm in diam., with numerous fibrous roots. Stem solitary, erect or curved in lower part, 60-65 cm tall, slender, striate, long naked in lower part, sparsely or densely yellow-brown capitate stipitate glandular hairy. Lower leaves withered by anthesis; petiole 4-8.5 cm, not winged, expanded into an amplexicaul auricle; auricle entire or laxly toothed, with capitate stipitate glandular hairs. Stem leaves 2, long petiolate; blade abaxially pale green, adaxially deep green, broadly reniform, 6-9 × 12-14 cm, thinly papery, both surfaces glabrous, capitate stipitate glandular hairy, basally 3-5-veined, lateral veins upward divaricate, base deeply cordate, margin irregularly undulate coarsely toothed, large teeth angular, stiffly mucronulate, apex retuse or subtruncate, triangular-rostrate-acute at center. Uppermost leaves reduced to bracteal leaf; bracteal leaves linear, 6-8 mm. Capitula very numerous, apically in a branched panicle; rachis and peduncles densely yellow-brown capitate stipitate glandular hairy; peduncles 6-13 mm, slender, with 1 or 2 linear bractlets. Involucres cylindric, 10-11 × 2-3 mm; phyllaries 4, green, linear or linear-lanceolate, 0.5-1 mm wide, outside sparsely capitate stipitate glandular hairy, margin narrowly scarious, apically acute. Florets 5, exserted from involucres; corolla yellow, 8-9 mm, with ca. 3 mm tube and narrowly campanulate limb; lobes lanceolate, ca. 2 mm. Anthers caudate at base. Style branches excurved, apex truncate, papillose. Achenes yellow-brown, cylindric, ca. 6 mm, glabrous, ribbed. Pappus white, ca. 7 mm. Fl. and fr. Aug.

● Open places on slopes; ca. 2800 m. Sichuan (Wenchuan).

Parasenecio maowenensis is similar to P. auriculatus but differs in the shape of leaves, the indumentum, and the number of phyllaries and florets.