纤细黄鹌菜 xian xi huang an cai

Basionym: Crepis atripappa Babcock, Univ. Calif. Publ. Bot. 14: 324. 1928; C. gracilis J. D. Hooker & Thomson ex C. B. Clarke; Youngia gracilis (J. D. Hooker & Thomson ex C. B. Clarke) Babcock & Stebbins (1937), not Miquel (1861); Y. stebbinsiana S. Y. Hu, nom. illeg. superfl.

Herbs 20-40 cm tall, perennial. Stem solitary, very slender, flexuous, erect, branched only apically, glabrous, leafy. Basal and lower stem leaves oblanceolate, 4-13 × 1-3 cm, both faces finely pubescent, base attenuate into a short cuneately winged petiole-like portion, margin coarsely sinuate-dentate, apex acuminate. Upper stem leaves similar to lower ones but smaller and elliptic to lanceolate; uppermost stem leaves linear or subulate, reduced in size. Synflorescence rather densely corymbiform, with few to several capitula. Capitula with ca. 15 florets; peduncle 1-1.5 cm, slender, glabrous. Involucre cylindric, 8-9 mm. Outer phyllaries 6 or 7, broadly ovate, ca. 1 mm, apex acute to obtuse; inner phyllaries 8, both faces glabrous, midvein subapically crested, margin white scarious, apex acute to obtuse. Anther tube and style branches green to blackish upon drying. Achene dark brown, subfusiform, ca. 4 mm, somewhat more attenuate toward apex than base, ribs finely spiculate. Pappus grayish, 4-5 mm. Fl. and fr. Jul-Aug.

Forest margins, thickets, grassy cliffs; ?3000-?3600 m. SE Xizang [Bhutan, India (Sikkim)].

The epithet of the earliest legitimate name of this species, Crepis gracilis, is not available in Youngia, because of Y. gracilis Miquel, and the corresponding combination by Babcock and Stebbins is thus illegitimate. Instead, the epithet of C. atripappa, which was included as a synonym by Babcock and Stebbins, is available and has to be taken up (Vienna Code, Art. 11.4). Youngia stebbinsiana, published by S. Y. Hu (Quart. J. Taiwan Mus. 22: 37. 1969) as a replacement name for Y. gracilis of Babcock and Stebbins, was thus nomenclaturally superfluous when published and is therefore illegitimate.