狮牙草状风毛菊 shi ya cao zhuang feng mao ju

Aplotaxis leontodontoides Candolle, Prodr. 6: 539. 1838; Saussurea irregularis Y. L. Chen & S. Yun Liang; S. kunthiana C. B. Clarke; S. kunthiana var. filicifolia J. D. Hooker; S. leontodontoides var. filicifolia (J. D. Hooker) Handel-Mazzetti; S. rhytidocarpa Handel-Mazzetti; S. sungpanensis Handel-Mazzetti.

Herbs 3-15 cm tall, perennial, stemless or shortly stemmed. Caudex usually branched, densely covered with remains of petioles, often with several leaf rosettes and flowering shoots. Stem if present simple, grayish white, arachnoid lanate, glabrescent. Rosette leaves petiolate; petiole 1-4 cm; leaf blade linear-oblong to narrowly elliptic, 3-18 × (0.4-)0.8-2.5 cm, pinnatisect, abaxially grayish white and densely tomentose, adaxially green, scabrid, strigose, and sometimes glabrescent; segments (5-)8-12 pairs, elliptic, semiorbicular, quadrangular, obliquely ovate, or subtriangular, 4-15 × 2-10 mm, margin entire, apex rounded to obtuse and mucronate. Capitulum solitary, in center of leaf rosette or terminal on stem. Involucre campanulate, 1-3 cm in diam. Phyllaries in 4-6 rows, straw-colored or yellowish green, green or purplish at margin, glabrous; outer and middle phyllaries narrowly ovate-triangular, 9-12 × 0.5-3 mm, apex acuminate; inner phyllaries narrowly elliptic to linear, 14-15 × 1.5-2 mm, apex acute. Receptacle bristles 2-3 mm. Corolla purplish red, (1.4-)1.7-2.2 cm, tube 1-1.4 cm, limb to 7-8 mm, lobes 4-5 mm. Achene cylindric, 2-4 mm, transversely rugose, glabrous. Pappus pale brown; outer bristles 2-3 mm, scabrid; inner bristles 1-1.6 cm. Fl. and fr. Aug-Nov. 2n = 30*.

Scree slopes, forests, forest margins, thickets; 3200-5500 m. Qinghai, W Sichuan, Xizang, NW Yunnan [NE and NW India, Kashmir, Nepal].

Saussurea irregularis, described from a single specimen and not recorded again, is said to differ from S. leontodontoides by glabrous (not scabrid and strigose) leaf surface and remote, irregularly placed leaf lobes. We think it is only a slightly deviating form of the widespread and vegetatively very variable S. leontodontoides.