橘黄蒲公英 ju huang pu gong ying

Herbs 8-20 cm tall. Petiole purple on midvein or green, winged to narrowly winged in outer and middle leaves and unwinged in inner ones, base densely arachnoid; leaf blade glaucous-green and with a purplish or green midvein, narrowly elliptic to narrowly oblanceolate, 6-12 × 1.5-2.5 cm, arachnoid, ± pinnatisect or rarely outer leaves undivided; lateral lobes 3 or 4 pairs, triangular to narrowly triangular, recurved to subrecurved but distal part sometimes patent, apex acute, proximal margin entire or with a few teeth, distal margin usually sigmoid to ± straight and most often entire but sometimes with 1 or 2 acute teeth; interlobes spotted dark brownish purple, 3-5 × 3-4 mm, margin irregularly dentate; terminal lobe narrowly triangular to lingulate-elongated, distal margin concave or sigmoid and usually entire, apex acute. Scapes purplish green, equaling to overtopping leaves, densely arachnoid to almost tomentose. Capitulum 3-4(-5) cm wide. Involucre light olivaceous green, ca. 1 cm wide, base ± rounded. Outer phyllaries 13-17, light olivaceous green, ± not imbricate, narrowly lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, outermost ones 6-7 × (1.5-)2-3 mm and ca. 2/3 as long as inner ones, erect but distal part often erect-arcuate, distinctly veined, border not distinct, suffused brownish purple or membranous, and 0.1-0.3 mm wide, margin ± long ciliate, apex with purplish brown horn; inner phyllaries 1.1-1.3 cm, apex dark corniculate. Ligules orange; outer ligules flat, outside striped faintly brownish purple; inner ligules with dark brownish purple apical teeth. Stigmas dark (brownish) purplish. Anthers without pollen. Achene light grayish straw-colored brown, 4.3-5.1 × 1.2-1.5 mm; body densely squamulose throughout, ± abruptly narrowing into a cylindric to subcylindric (0.7-)0.9-1.2(-1.4) mm cone; beak 5-8 mm. Pappus whitish, ca. 7 mm. Fl. summer. Agamosperm.

● Alpine meadows; ca. 3500 m. S Gansu, W Sichuan.

Taraxacum aurantiacum probably also occurs in SE Xizang as the localities in Sichuan are very close to the Xizang border. This taxon was entirely overlooked as a member of the Chinese flora since its description. The report of T. aurantiacum from Afghanistan (Soest in K. H. Rechinger, Fl. Iranica 122: 244. 1977) is erroneous because the voucher specimens and the published description belong to another taxon.