川西蒲公英 chuan xi pu gong ying

Herbs 7-9 cm tall, delicate. Petiole greenish or pinkish, narrow; leaf blade deep green, oblanceolate, 2.5-5 × 1-1.5 cm, subglabrous, margin shallowly pinnatilobed; lateral lobes 3 or 4 pairs, narrowly triangular, ca. 5 mm, approximate, patent, distal margin entire or with 1 minute tooth; interlobes short, margin sometimes with 1 tooth or lobule; terminal lobe ± broadly triangular. Scapes slightly overtopping leaves, densely arachnoid below capitulum. Capitulum 2-3 cm wide. Involucre ± blackish green, 5-7 mm wide, base narrowly rounded. Outer phyllaries 9-13, ± black, linear-lanceolate to narrowly lanceolate, outermost ones 4.8-5.8(-8) × 1.3-1.8 mm, unequal, and ca. 1/3(-2/3) as long as inner ones, appressed to apically recurved, with a whitish indistinct border becoming pinkish and 0.3-0.4 mm wide near apex, margin densely long ciliate, apex flat and not corniculate; inner phyllaries blackish green, 1.1-1.3 cm. Ligules (?pale) yellow; outer ligules flat, outside faintly striped greenish pink; inner ligules with yellowish apical teeth. Stigmas black. Anthers polliniferous; pollen grains irregular in size. Achene unknown. Agamosperm.

● Subnival places; ca. 4600 m. NW Sichuan.

The scarcity of material (absence of achenes and broad white border to outer phyllaries) make the position of Taraxacum chionophilum in T. sect. Tibetana rather uncertain.