Saussurea japonica ("Hinahigotai")

Japanese name: ヒナヒゴタイ
Scientific name: Saussurea japonica

[Overview]
A biennial 20–200 cm tall, growing in sunny grasslands.
It has a spindle-shaped root that extends vertically.
The stem is erect, often with narrow wings, and branches freely in the upper part.
There are basal leaves and stem leaves; the basal leaves and the leaves on the lower part of the stem have withered by the flowering season.
The stem leaves are alternate; those at the middle of the stem are elliptic, 7–30 cm long and 3.5–9 cm wide, herbaceous, and either pinnately divided into 5–8 pairs of lobes or undivided with serrations on the margin.
Both surfaces of the leaves have glandular dots and short hairs.
There are petioles.
The flower heads are reddish purple, 1.2–1.6 cm across, and borne densely in large numbers in corymb-like to panicle-like clusters.
The involucre is cylindrical to narrowly cylindrical, 0.5–1 cm in diameter, covered with cobwebby hairs, with a single row of involucre at the base.
The involucral bracts are in 8–9 rows, overlapping like roof tiles, with dry, membranous, pale reddish purple appendages at the tips.
The fruit is an achene with a pappus.

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