Allardia vestita Hook. fil. & Thoms. ex C. B. Cl.

A densely greyish-white lanate perennial herb with many, up to c. 6 cm tall, tufted monocephalous shoots from the woody, profusely branched creeping rhizomes. Leaves sessile, narrowly oblanceolate-spathulate or obtriangular, 10 – 15 (-18) mm long, 4 – 5 (-6) mm wide, densely gray-white lanate on both sides, palmately 3-fid at the apices with 1 – 2.5 mm long, obtuse lobes, basally cuneate, upper leaves ± entire. Capitula solitary, 3.5 – 4 cm across, on short, woolly peduncles. Involucre more or less hemispherical or broadly napiform, 3-4-seriate, 12 – 15 mm across, phyllaries ovate-oblong to broadly lanceolate, (4-) 5 – 6 x 1 – 3 mm, deeply brown membranous on margins, externally densely lanate, acute. Ray-florets sterile, with oblong-elliptic, 14 – 15 x 3 – 4 mm, pink, obscurely 3-fid limbs. Disc-florets bisexual, fertile, yellow, with 3.5 – 4 mm long, sparsely glandular, basally somewhat expanded, 5-toothed corolla tube. Cypselas ± obconical, 1.5 – 1.75 mm long, beset with sessile glands and crowned by style bases. Pappus pale-brown, 1.5 – 2 mm long, bristles apically flattened and brownish.

Distribution: Pakistan and China (Xizang).

Fl. Per.: July-October.

In sandy gravel near the edges of glaciers in the subalpine to alpine zone between 4200 and 5200 msl in Northern Areas (Baltistan, Kashmir, Ladakh).

Waldheimia vestita (Hook. f. & Thomson) Pamp., Fl. dela Carac. 208. 1930; R.R.Stewart, Ann. Cat. Vasc. Pl. W. Pak. & Kashm. 800. 1972; B.D.Naithani in Hajra et al., Fl. Ind. 12: 72. 1995.