Pluchea bulleyana Jeffrey, Notes Roy. Bot. Gard. Edinburgh 5: 183. 1912; Conyza mollis H. Léveillé (1912), not Willdenow (1803).

Herbs, annual or biennial, with thickish taproot, rosette leaves, and solitary or a few caespitose flowering stems, all arachnoid long cottony tomentose and with rusty brown adhesive stalked glandular hairs. Stems erect, 30-80 cm, channeled, usually branched, lower parts usually glabrous, upper parts densely hairy. Rosette leaves obovate, ca. 9 × 5.5 cm, long cottony tomentose, base attenuate and becoming a short winged petiole; lower leaves often caducous and withered by anthesis; middle and upper leaves oblanceolate or obovate-spatulate, 3.5-10 × 1-2.5 cm, both surfaces pilose glandular, long cottony tomentose along veins, 3-veined and with lateral veins, base decurrent on stems and becoming a cuneate broad wing, margin flat, apex acute; uppermost leaves smaller, linear-lanceolate. Capitula numerous, congested in compound corymbiform synflorescences terminal on stems and branches; peduncle ca. 6 mm. Involucre obovate, 5-6 × 4-7 mm; phyllaries 4- or 5-seriate, erect, light brown, hyaline, base light lutescent, not expanding; outer phyllaries short, ovate-oblong, apex obtuse, arachnoid hairy; middle ones narrowly spatulate, 5-6 mm; innermost ones broadly linear, with a claw ca. 2/3 of full length. Receptacle alveolate. Capitulum with many florets, with 4 or 5 or 30 central male florets and many or few rows of marginal female florets. Corolla 3-5 mm. Pappus slightly exserted from corolla; male florets pappus somewhat incrassate at tip of apex, serrulate. Achene oblong, 0.6-0.7 mm, glandular. Fl. Aug-Sep, fr. Sep-Oct.

The species is unique in the genus for its color and structure of phyllaries.

● Subalpine wet slopes, low hill grasslands; 1100-3300 m. Guizhou, W Sichuan, N and NW Yunnan.