双角蒲公英 shuang jiao pu gong ying

Herbs 4-17 cm tall. Petiole pale green, narrowly winged; leaf blade glaucous-green with a light green to pinkish midvein, narrowly oblanceolate to narrowly oblong, 3-12 × 1.1-2.5 cm, slightly fleshy, glabrous, shallowly pinnatilobed to pinnatifid; lateral lobes usually 4 or 5 pairs, deltoid, falcate, or broadly deltoid-triangular, patent to hamate-recurved, proximal margin ± entire, distal margin ± denticulate, apex acute; interlobes often bordered reddish, margin subentire; terminal lobe triangular to 3-partite, margin ± entire, apex acute to subobtuse. Scapes brownish or purplish green, often overtopping leaves, arachnoid. Capitulum 2-3 cm wide. Involucre 5-8 mm wide, base narrowly rounded. Outer phyllaries 9-14, light green, sometimes suffused purplish, ± not imbricate, ovate to broadly lanceolate, outermost ones 4-6(-7) × 1.7-2.8 mm and 1/4-1/3 as long as inner ones, loosely appressed to erect, border indistinct, whitish light green, with a gradual transition, and 0.1-0.4 mm wide, margin ± glabrous, apex with a ± thick suberect horn to 2 mm; inner phyllaries 1-1.4 cm, apex with thick short horn and often laterally dilated. Ligules light yellow; outer ligules flat, outside striped brownish purple; inner ligules with yellow teeth at apex; ligule tube pubescent. Stigmas pure yellow. Anthers polliniferous; pollen grains regular in size. Achene light grayish straw-colored brown, 3.7-4.2 × 0.8-0.9 mm; body ± densely spinulose above, subgradually narrowing into a subcylindric 0.8-1 mm cone, spinules thin, usually suberect, and not squamulose; beak 7-9 mm. Pappus bright white, 5-6 mm. Fl. late spring and early summer. Sexual.

Subsaline pastures, grasslands; 600-1800 m. Gansu, Qinghai, Xinjiang [Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan].

Reports of Taraxacum bicorne from Nei Mongol and Ningxia (Higher Pl. China 11: 779. 2005) remain to be proven.