天全蒲公英 tian quan pu gong ying

Type: China. Sichuan: "Sze-ch’uan bor.-occid.: Tsipula, fjälläng i passet," ca. 4000 m, 5 Aug 1922, H. Smith, Pl. Sin. 4173 (lectotype, designated here, UPS; isolectotype, S).

Taraxacum apargiiforme f. integrifolium Dahlstedt.

Herbs to 15 cm tall, slender. Petiole pale green or purplish, narrow; leaf blade narrowly oblanceolate, ± glabrous, margin undivided and remotely dentate or pinnatisect; lateral lobes in 4 or 5 pairs, approximate, ± recurved, distal margin sigmoid, apex with an elongated tip; interlobes short, margin entire; terminal lobe ± triangular, with a lingulate tip. Scapes brownish green, overtopping leaves, glabrous. Capitulum ca. 3 cm wide. Involucre obconic, 5-7 mm wide. Outer phyllaries 11-13, blackish green, ± not imbricate, ovate to lanceolate, outermost ones 4.2-6.5 × 1.3-2 mm and 1/3-1/2 as long as inner ones, loosely appressed, venation not visible, unbordered, margin whitish ciliate, flat below apex; inner phyllaries 1-1.1 cm. Ligules (?pale) yellow; outer ligules flat and striped pinkish outside; inner ligules with blackish purple teeth. Stigmas black. Anthers polliniferous; pollen grains regular in size. Achene (mature unknown) probably straw-colored brown, ca. 4 mm, apically sparsely spinulose and subabruptly narrowing into a conic 0.6-0.7 mm cone; beak at least 5 mm. Pappus white, ca. 5 mm. Fl. summer. Sexual.

● Alpine meadows; ca. 4000 m. Sichuan.

Reports of Taraxacum apargiiforme from Xizang (FRPS 80(2): 60. 1999; Higher Pl. China 11: 783. 2005) are uncertain.

The original material of Taraxacum apargiiforme listed by Dahlstedt in the protologue is not homogeneous, and we exclude H. Smith 4196. The figure of the achene in Dahlstedt (loc. cit.: pl. III: 21) is excluded as H. Smith 4196 does not belong to this species and is agamospermous, and the figure is based on a damaged immature achene. Dahlstedt also mistakenly listed H. Smith 4171, not at all present in the original material (he himself gave the correct number, H. Smith 4173, in the caption to fig. 14, c, d).