柱果绿绒蒿 zhu guo lü rong hao

Herbs, perennial, 50-100 cm tall in flower, colorless hyaline lactiferous. Roots many, slender; rootstock with persistent leaf bases, densely yellow-brown barbellate-setose. Stems erect, branched, obviously channeled, near base sparsely setose. Cauline leaves glaucous abaxially, dark green adaxially, ovate or narrowly ovate, 5-10 × 3-5 cm, both surfaces sparsely yellow-brown hirsute, near base pinnatisect, near apex pinnatilobate; lobes 3-5, distant, petiolulate to almost sessile, pinnatifid; lobules ovate to obovate, base broadly cuneate, truncate, or slightly cordate, apex obtuse; lower cauline leaves like basal leaves, petiolate, but upper ones smaller, sessile or nearly so, slightly amplexicaul. Flowers 1 or 2, at uppermost leaf axils, forming cymose panicles, ascending to half-nodding. Pedicel 5-10 cm, slender. Flower buds spherical or ovoid. Sepals 2, elliptic, 7-10 mm, glabrous. Petals 4, yellow, broadly ovate to orbicular, 1-1.5(-2) × 0.8-1.5(-2) cm. Filaments filiform, 4-7 mm; anthers yellow, narrowly ovoid, ca. 1 mm. Ovary narrowly oblong or almost terete, ca. 8 × 1 mm, glabrous; styles very short; stigmas 4- or 5-lobed, lobes slightly decurrent. Capsule narrowly oblong or almost cylindrical, 2.4-4.5 cm × 3.5-5 mm, glabrous, gibbous costate, 4- or 5-valvate, slightly divided downward from apex. Seeds many, brown, shiny, elliptic-ovoid, ca. 1 mm, seed coat distinctly longitudinally striate and clathrate impressed. Fl. May-Aug.

● Forest understories on slopes, among shrubs; 1500-2400 m. Chongqing, Henan, W Hubei (Badong, Shennongjia), S Shaanxi, ?E Sichuan.