Saussurea elliptica - Elliptic-Leaf Saw-Wort

Elliptic-Leaf Saw-Wort is a perennial herb 2-8 cm tall, almost stemless or nearly so. Stem is solitary, simple, erect to rising up, 1.5-3 mm in diameter. Lower and middle stem leaves are stalked; leaf-stalk 0.8-4.5 cm; leaves ovate-elliptic, 1.5-7 x 0.5-3 cm, both surfaces grayish green, gland-dotted, and arachnoid, base wedge-shaped, narrowed, or almost flat, margin finely toothed, tip pointed to tapering. Uppermost stem leaves are linear, subtending the flower cluster. Flower-heads are 2-10, in a dense to lax clustered corymb-like cluster, nearly stalkless to shortly stalked. Involucre is obconical to narrowly bell-shaped, 5-13 mm in diameter. Phyllaries are in 3 or 4 rows, straw-colored and sometimes tinged with purple, woolly to becoming hairless, tip tapering to somewhat pointed. Flowers are pale reddish purple, 1.1-1.6 cm, glandular, tube 5-8 mm, limb 5-8 mm, lobes up to 5 mm. Elliptic-Leaf Saw-Wort is found in alpine grasslands and meadows, rocky slopes, scree slopes, among rocks, at altitudes of 2500-4600 m, from Central Asia to W. Xinjiang and W. Himalaya. Flowering: August-September.