寡头风毛菊 gua tou feng mao ju

Herbs or subshrubs, 20-50(-100) cm tall, perennial, densely caespitose. Rootstock stout and fibrous. Caudex much branched. Stems very numerous, 1.5-2 mm in diam., ascending or erect, virgately branched from base, woody at base. Rosette and lower stem leaves shortly petiolate; leaf blade linear, 4.5-5.5 × 0.5-0.6 cm, thick, both surfaces grayish green, abaxially arachnoid and gland-dotted, margin entire or sparsely dentate, apex mucronate. Middle and upper stem leaves gradually smaller upward on stem, 3-30 × 1-3 mm. Capitula solitary or to 3 clustered on end of branches in a corymbiform synflorescence, pedunculate. Involucre narrowly campanulate to tubular, 3-6 mm in diam. Phyllaries in 4-6 rows, straw-colored, apically purplish, pubescent, gland-dotted, glabrescent, apex obtuse to shortly acuminate; outer phyllaries broadly ovate, 1-2 × 0.5-1 mm; middle and inner phyllaries narrowly ovate to linear, 2-7 × ca. 1 mm. Receptacle bristles subulate, to 8 mm. Corolla pink, ca. 1.6 cm, gland-dotted, tube ca. 6 mm, limb ca. 1 cm, lobes ca. 4 mm. Achene dark brown, 5-6 mm, 4-ribbed. Pappus white; outer bristles 1-4 mm; inner bristles 1-1.1 cm. Fl. and fr. Aug-Sep.

Gravelly shores, saline deserts; ca. 600 m. Xinjiang [W Mongolia].