Ainsliaea latifolia - Broadleaf Ainsliaea

Broadleaf Ainsliaea is a perennial herb, 30-90 cm tall. Leaves are in a basal rosette; leaf-stalk broadly winged, 4-9 x 4-30 mm (at upper point); leaf blade ovate or narrowly ovate, 5-10 x 3-8 cm, papery, palmate-pinnate veined, concolorous, bristly on both surfaces with long straight trichomes, or more commonly slightly discolorous with lower surface bristly-woolly and upper surface sparsely bristly, base constricted and decurrent into leaf-stalk, margin callose-finely toothed and straight, tip blunt or pointed. Flower-heads are nearly stalkless or shortly stalked, (1 or)2-4 clustered, arranged in spikes or panicles, 3-flowered. Involucre is cylindric, about 3 mm in diameter; phyllaries about 5-seriate, papery, below sparsely hairy, outer phyllaries ovate, about 1.5 mm, inner elliptic, about 8 mm. Florets are bisexual. Open florets are tubular, 0.8-1.1 cm, deeply 5-lobed, lobes oblong, unequal, anther appendages rounded. Achenes are subspindle-shaped, about 5.5 mm, ribbed, densely hairy; pappus absent or present, brownish, 8-10 mm. Closed florets are tubular, minutely 5-lobed, about 4 mm, hidden in pappus. Achenes are subspindle-shaped, about 6 mm, ribbed, densely hairy; pappus brownish, 8-10 mm. Broadleaf Ainsliaea is found in the Himalayas, from Kashmir to Bhutan, NE India, N. Burma, Thailand, Indo-China, China, Taiwan, Philippines, at altitudes of 1700-3500 m. Flowering: All year.