Androsace bulleyana Forrest

Herbs biennial or annual. Leaf rosettes solitary, 5--10 cm in diam. Leaves sessile, spatulate, 2--5 cm, 4--8 mm wide at distal end, tapering to base, glabrous, margin cartilaginous and pectinate-ciliate, apex rounded and mucronate. Scapes 1 to many, 10--28 cm, fulvous spreading hirsute; umbels many flowered; bracts broadly lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, 4--9 mm, densely ciliate. Pedicel slightly longer than bracts at beginning of anthesis, elongating to 2.8 cm in fruit, densely hirtellous. Calyx 4.5--5 mm, sparsely pilose, base subacute, parted to 1/2 or below; lobes oblong, long ciliate, apex obtuse to subrounded. Corolla purple, with a dark eye, 8--10 mm in diam.; lobes cuneate-obovate, apex slightly emarginate to irregularly denticulate. Fl. Jun-Jul.

NW Yunnan.

* Gravelly slopes, valleys; 1800--3200 m.

Androsace aizoon Duby var. coccinea Franchet; A. coccinea Franchet.

Flowering from June to July.

Androsace bulleyana is close relative of Androsace integra, but differs from the latter in its calyx sparsely pilose, smooth (vs. densely bristly, ± furrowed in fruit), lobes oblong, obtuse to subrounded at apex (vs. triangular, acute at apex).

Androsace bulleyana is occurring in NW Yunnan of China.

Phylogenetic analyses of Androsace and the closely related genera Douglasia, Pomatosace, and Vitaliana were inferred from DNA sequences of the nuclear internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and the plastid trnL-F region (Schneeweiss et al., 2004). Results shown: Androsace sect. Andraspis, comprising the short-lived taxa, is highly polyphyletic; Pomatosace constitutes a separate phylogenetic lineage within Androsace; and Douglasia and Vitaliana nest within Androsace sect. Aretia. The results suggest multiple origins of the short-lived lifeform and a possible reversal from annual or biennial to perennial habit at the base of a group that now contains mostly perennial high mountain or arctic taxa. The group containing Androsace sect. Aretia, Douglasia, and Vitaliana includes predominantly high alpine and arctic taxa with an arctic-alpine distribution, but is not found in the European and northeastern American Arctic or in Central and East Asia. This group probably originated in Europe in the Pliocene, from where it reached the amphi-Beringian region in the Pleistocene or late Pliocene.

Herbs biennial or annual. Leaf rosettes solitary, 5-10 cm in diameter. Leaves sessile, spatulate, 2-5 cm long, 4-8 mm wide at distal end, tapering to base, glabrous, margin cartilaginous and pectinate-ciliate, apex rounded and mucronate. Scapes 1 to many, 10-28 cm, fulvous spreading hirsute; umbels many flowered; bracts broadly lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, 4-9 mm, densely ciliate. Pedicel slightly longer than bracts at beginning of anthesis, elongating to 2.8 cm in fruit, densely hirtellous. Calyx 4.5-5 mm, sparsely pilose, base subacute, parted to 1/2 or below; lobes oblong, long ciliate, apex obtuse to subrounded. Corolla purple, with a dark eye, 8-10 mm in diameter; lobes cuneate-obovate, apex slightly emarginate to irregularly denticulate.

The chromosomal number of Androsace bulleyana is 2n = 20 (Nakata et al., 1997).

Growing in gravelly slopes, valleys; 1800-3200 m.