Axyris prostrata L.

Plants 2-14 cm tall. Stems and branches prostrate or ascending, densely stellate pubescent. Petiole nearly as long as leaf blade; leaf blade broadly elliptic, ovate, or suborbicular, 0.5-1.5 × 0.4-0.9 cm, stellate hairy, base cuneate-attenuate, margin entire, apex rounded, mucronulate; midvein obscure. Male flowers in subcapitate inflorescences; perianth segments 3(or 5), obovate, membranous, abaxially densely hairy; stamens 3 or 5, exserted. Female flowers: perianth segments 3, membranous, hairy; ovary ovoid, compressed; style short; stigmas 2, slender. Utricle globose or obovoid, compressed, encircled by wrinkles, apical appendages 2, small or obscure. Fl. and fr. Jul-Aug.

Stems stellately pubesent; mostly reddish. Leaves narrowed to a petiole, stellate-pubescent on both sides, very rarely glabrous and then the stem and staminate flowers reddish (var. virdis IIjin). Staminate flowers in capitate inflorescence at the ends of stem and branches, with pubescent perianth. Perianth of pistillate flowers 3-lobed, hairy. Fruit broadly obovate or sometimes round, 1.4-1.75 x 1-1.5 mm, strongly compressed laterally, dark gray, transversely rugose, terminating in obsolescent remote white scarious teeth, or without them.

C Nepal: China, Mongolia, Russia (S Siberia), Sikkim, Tajikistan.

Distribution: Russia (Siberia), Mongolia, Tajikistan and Kashmir.

4400- 4600 m

Fl. Per.: July–August.

High-elevation valleys, terraces, rocky slopes. Qinghai, Xinjiang, Xizang [Mongolia, Nepal, Russia (S Siberia), Sikkim, Tajikistan].

Axyris pamirica B. Fedtschenko; A. prostrata f. ovatifolia T. P. Soong.

A. amaranthoides var. humifusa Hook. f., F1. Brit. Ind. 5: 9.1886; A glacialis B.Fedtsh. in Acta Hort. Petrop. 24: 57. 1908; A. pamirica B. Fedtsch. in Acta Hort. Petrop. 24(3): 342. 1905; A. prostrata var. pamirica B.Fedtsch., 1.c. 342.

Annual with several prostrate stems up to 25 cm long; at high elevations (4000–5000 m), the plant often has a pincushion habit with small branches and short internodes. Leaves long-petiolate, spatulate, up to 3.5 cm, entire, with longer (up to 1.5 mm) stellate hairs near the leaf base, substituted in other parts by short-rayed hairs. Male inflorescence up to 2.0 cm. Perianth of the female flowers with scattered simple hairs. All fruits compressed; black fruits 1.5–2.2 mm long, oblong, with hardly noticeable or indistinct ear-like appendages; brown fruits 1.3–1.8(2.2) mm long, pear-like, with small appendages.

See Fig. 29.