淡红座蒲公英 dan hong zuo pu gong ying

Herbs 15-25 cm tall. Petiole ± purple, subglabrous at base, unwinged or narrowly winged; leaf blade grayish green with a vivid purple midvein, narrowly oblanceolate, (6-)8-13 × 1-3.5 cm, sparsely arachnoid to glabrescent, usually pinnatisect lobed but outer leaves sometimes undivided; lateral lobes 3 or 4 pairs, narrowly triangular to lingulate-elongated, 0.5-1.5 cm, recurved, proximal margin straight to subsigmoid and entire, distal margin straight to ± concave or sigmoid and entire or with a single minute tooth, apex acute; interlobes ca. 15 × 3-4 mm, margin entire or minutely dentate and with large conspicuous brownish purple spots; terminal lobe narrowly triangular to triangular, (0.8-)1.3-3 × 0.8-3 cm, usually indistinctly 3-partite, basal segments ± patent to recurved and with margin ± entire, terminal segment with distal side of segment margin entire or rarely with small teeth or incisions and apex acute and often narrowly lingulate-elongated. Scapes purple in proximal part, ± equaling leaves, arachnoid but later glabrescent. Capitulum ca. 3 cm wide. Involucre 7-8 mm wide, base ± rounded. Outer phyllaries 15-20, light green with a gradual transition into a whitish green border, ± not imbricate, linear-lanceolate to lanceolate, outermost ones 6-7 × 1.5-2.5 mm and ca. 1/2 as long as inner ones, ± loosely appressed, margin sparsely ciliate, apex with a brownish purple horn to 1.5 mm; inner phyllaries 1.3-1.4 cm, apex flat or corniculate. Ligules yellow; outer ligules flat, outside striped blackish. Stigmas dark. Anthers polliniferous; pollen grains irregular in size. Achene grayish brown, 4.9-5.4 × 1.1-1.3 mm; body densely tuberculate throughout, apically densely tuberculate-squamulose, coarsely spinulose on ridges, very gradually narrowing into a narrowly conic 1.1-1.5 mm cone; beak 5-9 mm. Pappus brownish white, ca. 7 mm. Fl. spring. Agamosperm.

● Roadsides, grasslands; 100-400 m. Jilin, Liaoning.

Taraxacum erythropodium is very close to T. liaotungense. Most of the differences are found in achenes (color, thickness, length of cone) and also leaf coloration.