白蒲公英 bai pu gong ying

Herbs 10-14 cm tall. Petiole usually purple, narrowly winged in outer and middle leaves, ± unwinged in inner ones; leaf blade bright green and often with a purplish midvein, ± linear, 7-10 × 0.7-1.2 cm, subglabrous, margin almost entire, dentate, or irregularly lobed; lateral lobes (if present) 3 or 4 pairs, triangular, 3-4 × 3-4 mm, ± patent, blades of inner leaves often deeply dissected into linear to linear-triangular lobes; interlobes short, 3-4 mm wide, margin entire or with minute acute teeth near distal base of lobes; terminal lobe not distinct in middle leaves, to 2 cm in inner leaves, margin usually entire. Scapes brownish green, ± equaling leaves, densely arachnoid below capitulum. Capitulum 2-3 cm wide. Involucre 1-1.2 cm wide, base rounded to slightly truncate. Outer phyllaries 10-13, middle part dark blackish green and 0.6-1.5 mm wide, not imbricate, ovate, outermost ones 6-7.5 × 2.5-3.5 mm and ca. 1/2 as long as inner ones, ± appressed, with a very distinct whitish membranous 0.9-1.3 mm border, margin glabrous to sparsely ciliate at apex, apex distinctly corniculate; inner phyllaries 1.2-1.4 cm, corniculate below apex. Ligules outside pure white; outer ligules flat to cucullate, outside striped purplish gray; inner ligules white to slightly pinkish white, with grayish teeth. Stigmas grayish to blackish green. Anthers sparsely polliniferous; pollen grains irregular in size. Achene pale grayish, 3.9-4.2 mm; body apically spinulose and subabruptly narrowing into a cylindric to subcylindric 0.8-1 mm cone, spinules long and coarse; beak 4-5 mm, thin. Pappus pale yellowish, 6.5-7.5 mm. Fl. summer. Agamosperm.

Wet saline marshes, wet pastures, along rivers; 2000-3000 m. W Xinjiang [Kyrgyzstan].

Taraxacum album is a rather marginal species in this section, with some resemblance to species of T. sect. Suavia.