Lepidium cordatum Willd. ex DC.

The above first record from Xizang is based on Ladygin 312 (LE).

Herbs perennial, 15-40 cm tall, glabrous except for pilose sepals and pedicels, glaucous. Stems erect, branched basally and above. Basal leaf blade obovate, pinnatifid, withered by fruiting. Cauline leaves sessile; leaf blade oblong or lanceolate, 0.3-1.8(-3) cm × 2-7(-13) mm, subleathery, base sagittate or auriculate, margin serrulate or entire, apex acute or obtuse. Fruiting pedicels slender, straight, 2-4 mm, pilose in flower, glabrous in fruit. Sepals caducous, broadly ovate or suborbicular, 0.8-1.2 × 0.8-1 mm, sparsely pilose with crisped trichomes, broadly white at margin and apex. Petals white, obovate, 1.5-1.8 × 0.8-1 mm, base clawed, apex rounded. Stamens 6; filaments 0.7-1.5 mm, often conspicuously dilated at base; anthers oblong, 0.2-0.4 mm. Fruit suborbicular or broadly ovate-cordate, 2-2.5(-2.8) × 1.8-2.3 mm, wingless, base sometimes subcordate; apical notch absent or rarely ca. 0.05 mm; style 0.1-0.3 mm; stigma discoid, distinctly broader than style. Seeds reddish brown, oblong, 0.9-1.1 × 0.5-0.6 mm, papillate; cotyledons incumbent. Fl. May-Jun, fr. Jun-Jul.

Gansu, Nei Mongol, Ningxia, Qinghai, Xinjiang, Xizang [Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Russia, Tajikistan].

Saline meadows or lowlands; 1000-3900 m.