珠芽蟹甲草 zhu ya xie jia cao

Cacalia bulbiferoides Handel-Mazzetti, Symb. Sin. 7: 1131. 1936; Koyamacalia bulbiferoides (Handel-Mazzetti) H. Robinson & Brettell.

Plants ca. 85 cm tall, with fascicled fibrous roots. Stem solitary, erect, often becoming purple, stiff, finely sulcate, naked at base, sparsely arachnoid. Leaves lax; petioles 3-5 cm, not winged; leaf blade adaxially green, broadly triangular-ovate or broadly ovate, 6-12 × ca. 15 cm, herbaceous, abaxially sparsely arachnoid, glabrescent, adaxially sparsely shortly brown hairy on veins, palmately 5-7-veined and 1 or 2 lateral veins, base angular-cordate, margin undulate, stoutly toothed, or 9-11-lobulate, apex obtuse or shortly acute. Upper leaves shortly petiolate, all leaf axils with ovoid, ca. 7 mm scaly buds; buds brown, tomentulose. Capitula numerous, spreading, arranged in terminal racemes or compound racemes, to 40 cm; lower bracts with sparse buds; uppermost bracts to 8 mm; bracts lanceolate, ca. 6 mm, submembranous; peduncles 1-2 mm, tomentose, with 1 bractlet. Involucres cylindric-campanulate; phyllaries 5 or 6, lanceolate, 11-13 mm, glabrous, margin scarious, apically obtuse. Florets 8-10; corolla yellow, ca. 1 cm, with ca. 4 mm tube and cylindric, broader, ca. 6 mm limb; lobes linear, ca. 1 mm, involute. Anthers exserted from corolla, purple when dry, basally caudate. Style branches truncate, papillose, ovary glabrous, cylindric. Pappus white, shorter than corolla. Fl. Sep.

● Wet places in valleys; 1000-2200 m. W Hubei, Hunan (Hengshan), Shaanxi (Hanzhong).