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Shrubby Ajania
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Shrubby Ajania
ative Photo: Prashant Awale
Common name: Shrubby Ajania
Botanical name: Ajania fruticulosa    Family: Asteraceae (Sunflower family)
Synonyms: Tanacetum fruticulosum, Chrysanthemum gracile, Ajania gracilis

Shrubby Ajania is a grayish hairy, woody subshrub, with numerous, upright to somewhat erect, up to 45 cm tall shoots from the woody, vertical, branched, about 1 cm thick rootstock. Leaves are densely hairy and glandular. Lower stem leaves are stalked to stalkless, 2-3 cm long, 1.5-2 cm broad, tripartite, primary segments irregularly palmately cut to pinnately cut into lanceshaped, blunt ultimate segments. Upper leaves are less dissected, uppermost lanceshaped and entire. Flower-heads are bracteate, 4-5 mm across, shortly stalked, congested in corymbs at the top of shoots. Involucre is cylindrical to hemispherical, phyllaries pubescent, outer narrowly lanceolate to lanceolate, narrowly hyaline-scarious at apices, inner ones oblong-ovate. Receptacle cup is hemispherical. Marginal flowers are female, with narrow, about 1 mm long, 2-3-dentate floret tube. Disc-florets are bisexual, with narrowly tubular, about 2 mm long, 4-toothed corolla tube. Cypselas are oblong, 1.2-1.5 mm long, angular. is found in the dry areas of Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Siberia, Central Asia, Mongolia, Xizang, and Himalayas, at altitudes of 500-4400 m. Flowering: October-November.

Identification credit: Miroslav Dvorsky
Photographed enroute to Tsokar Lake, Ladakh.
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