Androsace umbellata (Lour.) Merr.

The only spring annual here of the plains and ascending to c. 1500 m. Usually found as an undergrowth in shady places or near streams, ditches or moist embankments.

An annual 5-11 cm tall. Leaves basal, petiolate. Lamina 5-21 x 6-20 mm, cordate-reniform to suborbicular, subcrenate-dentate, pilose-pubescent. Petiole 2-3 times the lamina length, 10-25 (-30) mm long, pilose. Scapes 3-12 in. number, unequal, the largest up to 10 cm long, slender, glandular-pubescent; umbel 3-9-flowered. Bract 2-3 mm long, ovate or lanceolate-ovate, pilose. Pedicel 10-30 mm long, up to 38 mm in fruit, slender, glandular-pubescent. Flowers white. Calyx campanulate, 2/3 rd cleft, accrescent and stellate in fruit; lobes c. 3.5 mm long, unequal, elliptic-ovate, 3-nerved, pubescent. Corolla barely exceeding the calyx; limb 4-4.5 mm broad; lobes 2-2.5 mm long, oblong to obovate. Anthers less than 1 mm long. Ovary globose-depressed. Style less than 1 mm long. Capsule 3.5-3.7 mm broad, globose. Seeds 12-50, less than 1 mm long, angled, vesiculose, brown.

Herbs annual or biennial, with numerous fibrous roots. Leaves basal; petiole 1--4 cm, pilose; leaf blade suborbicular to ovate, 5--20 wide, appressed pubescent, base shallowly cordate to subrounded, margin dentate, apex obtuse to rounded. Scapes often many, erect, 4--15 cm, pubescent; umbels 4--15-flowered; bracts ovate to lanceolate, 3.5--4 mm. Pedicel 1--3 cm, elongating to 6 cm in fruit, pubescent and short-stalked glandular. Calyx 3--4 mm, densely pubescent, parted nearly to base; lobes rhomboid-ovate, enlarging and stellately spreading in fruit; veins 3--6. Corolla white, 4--6 mm in diam., with a yellow eye; tube ca. 2 mm; lobes obovate-oblong, 2.5--3 X 1.5--2 mm, apex obtuse. Fl. Feb-Apr. 2n = 18@.

Pakistan, Himalaya (Kashmir to Sikkim), India, China, Japan, Ryukyu Is.

Distribution: Pakistan, Kashmir to Sikkim, India, Cochin China and Ryukyu Ils.

Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Jilin, Liaoning, Nei Mongol, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Xizang, Yunnan, Zhejiang [India, Japan, Kashmir, Korea, Myanmar, New Guinea, Pakistan, Philippines, E Russia, Sikkim, Vietnam].

270-1500 m

Fl. Per.: March-April.

Open grassy areas, roadsides; 100--1500 m.

Drosera umbellata Loureiro, Fl. Cochinch. 1: 186. 1790; Androsace saxifragaefolia Bunge; Primula minutiflora Forrest; P. umbellata (Loureiro) Bentvelzen.