Androsace rigida Hand.-Mazz.

Herbs perennial, laxly cespitose. Shoots much branched, dark brown, densely hirsute with bristlelike brown hairs, internodes 2--4 cm, with old leaf rosettes on nodes. Leaf rosettes of current year borne on apex of shoots, 0.8--1.5 cm in diam. Leaves trimorphic. Outer leaves early deciduous, brown, ovate-lanceolate, 4--6 mm, ciliate; base white, dilated, sheathlike, 2--3 X wider than upper part; apex linear. Medial leaves sessile, ligulate-oblong to spatulate, nearly as long as outer leaves, abaxially hirsute, ciliate, adaxially glabrous or nearly so. Inner leaves subsessile, elliptic to obovate-elliptic, 6--13 X 2--3.5 mm, ciliate, abaxially with longer hairs, adaxially hirtellous, base attenuate, apex obtuse. Scapes erect, 1.5--4.5 cm, hirsute; umbels 1--7-flowered; bracts linear, ca. 5 mm, base gibbous, apex obtuse. Pedicel ca. as long as to slightly shorter than bracts, densely hirsute. Calyx ca. 3 mm, parted to 1/2; lobes oblong-ovate, densely hirsute, ciliate, apex obtuse. Corolla deep red or pink, 6--10 mm in diam.; lobes broadly obovate. Fl. May-Jul.

SW Sichuan, NW Yunnan.

* Grassy mountain slopes, in rock crevices at forest margins; 2900--3800 m.