Altai Doronicum

Family: Asteraceae. Native to Siberia, Mongolia, the mountains of Eastern Kazakhstan and Central Asia.

Perennial rhizomatous plant 10–70 cm tall, glabrous. Rhizome thick, obliquely ascending up to 10 mm in diameter, producing one stem at the slightly raised apex. Stem erect, simple or branching, green, brown, sometimes reddish-purple, thinly ribbed, leafless or leafy to the very top, under the capitula usually densely glandular-hairy. At the base the stem is usually covered with small scale-like stem-clasping leaves 1–2.5 cm long and 1–1.6 cm wide. Basal leaves elliptic, nearly round, 5.5–12(15) cm long and 3–7(9) cm wide, long-petioled (up to 20–28 cm long), often withering during flowering. Stem leaves smaller, obovate or spatulate with a cordate base, stem-clasping or even perfoliate, entire-margined, finely or coarsely toothed, ciliate with glandular hairs along the margin, glabrous or with scattered hairs, upper ones often with punctate glands, sessile; only the lower, rarely the middle ones, narrowed into broad and winged petioles up to 2(5) cm long. Capitula at the top of the stem up to 4–6 cm in diameter (including ray florets), numbering 1–4, sometimes on long (up to 28 cm) peduncles. Involucre 2–3-seriate with equal lanceolate bracts up to 15 mm long, outer 1.8–2(4) mm wide, inner narrower 0.5–1 mm wide, all thin and long-acuminate, glandular-pubescent at the base or along the entire length, sometimes mixed with long white hairs. Rarely glabrous. Flowers yellow. The limb of the ray florets 1/3 longer than the involucre bracts, 1.6–2.2 cm long, smooth, three-toothed. Tubular (disk) florets 5–6 mm long, slightly longer than the pappus hairs or equal to them. Achenes all uniform, mature dark brown, smooth or sparsely hairy, ribbed, with a dirty-white pappus of numerous serrate hairs.