亚冠蒲公英 ya guan pu gong ying

Herbs 8-20 cm tall, brownish hairy at base. Petiole purple, narrow; leaf blade mid-green, narrowly oblanceolate, 4-7 × 0.8-1 cm, sparsely arachnoid, shallowly to deeply lobed; lateral lobes 5-9 pairs, ± triangular-deltoid, ± patent to recurved, margin entire, apex acute; terminal lobe triangular, often elongated. Scapes ± overtopping leaves, base purple, apically brownish white arachnoid. Capitulum 2-3 cm wide. Involucre blackish green, 8-10 mm wide, base ± rounded. Outer phyllaries 11-16, blackish green, not imbricate, narrowly triangular to narrowly lanceolate, usually widest in middle, outermost ones 6-8 × 1.8-2.5 mm and ca. 1/2 as long as inner ones, appressed, with a whitish 0.1-0.2 mm wide border, margin almost not ciliate, apex whitish and ± flat; inner phyllaries blackish green, 1.3-1.5 cm. Ligules pale yellow; outer ligules flat, outside striped grayish pink. Stigmas blackish. Anthers polliniferous; pollen grains irregular in size. Achene (when unripe) pale brownish, 4-5 mm; body apically spinulose, abruptly narrowing into a cone. Pappus white, ca. 6 mm. Fl. summer. Agamosperm.

● Alpine slopes along rivers; ca. 4500 m. Qinghai or N Xizang.

Taraxacum subcoronatum is known from the type specimen only, and it is uncertain if this collection is from N Xizang or Qinghai, although FRPS (80(2): 74. 1999) gives the locality as N Xizang.