The Sino-British AGS Expedition to Qinhai

(A new succulent species of Androsace found in Gansu China?)

By Harry Jans and John Mitchell

From 8^th of June to the 20^th of July 2000 the Sino British Qinghai A.G.S. Expedition (SQAE) took place in the provinces of Qinghai, Gansu and Sichuan in China. The aims of the expedition were to explore new areas that had not been visited by western botanists for many years. During this expedition several different species of Androsace were found. Unfortunately not many were in seed for introduction into cultivation. On the 19^th of June we were exploring an area of the Min Shan in the province of Gansu. Near the village of Maya we headed south into the Duo-er valley. This valley was mainly dry bare hillside that we thought might be very interesting, scientifically. We stopped to collect a few of the available plants and as we climbed up a dry west- facing slope we came across this wonderful species of Androsace. The plants were growing at an altitude of 1980mtr in very stony and dry, but quite heavy soil, and must be exposed to extreme dry spells in the summer. When we had a closer look at the cushions, which where between 10-30cm across, they seemed to be succulent in appearance. Herbarium material was collected and we found that this species formed very thick underground runners, which is unusual for Androsace. The rosettes are between 1-1.5cm across, and up to 6cm in height and form a very hard and compact cushion. The stem of each rosette has a trunk-like appearance and apart from the current years rosette only the withered leaves of the previous years growth remain. In A. tapete and some other species all the withered leaves remain on the stems. The thick leaves are linear-spathulate, mucronate, glabrous and dark green in colour. This species was not in flower, but seed capsules had formed on 1-3mm short pedicels and looked almost sessile. We were able to collect just a small amount of seed and this has been distributed to some specialist Androsace growers. We hope this will be a good introduction and only time will tell what the colour will be.

Coll. SQAE 265, 19/06/2000, collected by: C.D. Brickell, H. Jans, S. Maxwell, J. Mitchell and S. Petitt.