长穗蟹甲草 chang sui xie jia cao

Cacalia longispica Handel-Mazzetti, Acta Horti Gothob. 12: 301. 1938.

Rhizomes robust, with many fibrous roots. Stem solitary, erect, striate, to 100 cm tall, slender, stiff, strict, branched above, adpressed arachnoid and shortly glandular pubescent. Leaves long petiolate; petiole not winged, 3-5 cm. Median leaves papery, broadly cordate, 10-15 × 17-20 cm, abaxially gray-white tomentose, adaxially articulately shortly hairy, palmately 5-veined, lateral veins furcately branched, veins prominent on both surfaces, base cordate, margin deeply undulate-denticulate, teeth sometimes long mucronulate, apex shortly acute or obtuse. Uppermost leaves shortly petiolate, reniform, sometimes with buds in leaf axils. Capitula numerous, terminal and in upper leaf axils, arranged in raceme-panicles, or lateral synflorescences rudimentary, spreading or pendulous; rachis arachnoid, tomentose; bracts linear-lanceolate; uppermost bracts to 1 cm; peduncles 1-3 mm, usually with 1 bractlet. Involucres cylindric, 8-10 × 1.5-2 mm; phyllaries 3 or 4, green, linear, 10-11 × ca. 1.5 mm, glabrous or sparsely pubescent. Florets 2-4; corolla yellow, ca. 8 mm, with slender, 2-3 mm tube and cylindric-campanulate limb; lobes lanceolate, ca. 1 mm. Anthers slightly exserted from corolla, ca. 5 mm, basally caudate. Style branches truncate, papillose. Achenes brown, cylindric, ca. 5 mm, rugulose. Pappus white. Fl. Jul-Aug, fr. Sep-Oct.

● Thickets, grasslands on slopes; 2000-3100 m. Sichuan.