CRASSULA TILLAEA

Family:- CRASSULACEAE

Common Names:- Mossy stonecrop

Synonyms:- Crassula muscosa, Sedum tillaei, Tillaea muscosa, Tillaea

procumbens.

Meaning:- Crassula (L) Succuulent-little-plant.

Tillaea (L) For Michelangelo Tilli (1655-1740). Professor of Botany at

Pisa.

General description:- A minute, moss-like plant.

Stems:-

1) 1-5 cm, procumbent or ascending.

Leaves:-

1) 1-2 mm, ovate, concave, crowded, almost imbricate.

Flowers:-

1) 3-merous (rarely 4-merous), sessile in small groups in the leaf-axils.

2) Petals 1 mm, shorter than the sepals, narrowly lanceolate, white or pale pink.

Fruit:-

1) Follicles usually 2-seeded.

Key features:-

1) Leaves ovate, subacute.

2) Flowers sessile.

Click here for a glossary of terms used.

Habitat:- Open gravelly, sandy or loamy, seasonally wet ground along roads and

tracks, sometimes on field margins. 0-400(-1100) m.

Distribution:- Scattered in Peloponnisos, Ionian Islands and E part of the Greek

mainland. - Mediterranean area and W Europe, extending eastwards to S Anatolia

and W Syria. Somewhat scattered across Crete, mainly in the west and east.

Flowering time:- Mar-May.

Photos by:- Kind permission of Saxifraga - Free Nature Images & Wiki-Commons