SPECIES DESCRIPTION
LIMONIUM ECHIOIDES
Family:- PLUMBAGINACEAE
Common Names:- None
Synonyms:- Statice echioides, Taxanthema echioides.
Meaning:- Limonium (Gr) Meadow-plant. A name used by the Greek physician
and botanist Dioscorides.
Echioides (L) Resembling echium.
General description:- Annual with slender taproot.
Stems:-
a) slender, moderately branched
b) with cauline leaves reduced to ± scarious scales.
Leaves:-
a) usually 2-5 cm.
b) basal in a flat rosette.
c) narrowly obovate to spathulate-oblanceolate, obtuse, rather thin.
d) dark green, glaucous or reddish.
e) often glandular-tuberculate.
Flowers:-
1) Inflorescence with long, lax spikes of 1- or 2-flowered spikelets.
2) Inner bracts:
a) tuberculate
b) strongly involute.
3) Calyx:
a) teeth of the midrib extended into an uncinate awn.
4) Corolla pink or pale lilac.
Habitat:- Sandy and rocky maritime habitats, occasionally along roads and in dry
open shrubby vegetation some distance inland up to 300 m.
Distribution:- In Greece almost restricted to the Aegean area. - Widespread in the
Mediterranean region from S France to Cyprus. Sparsely scattered on Crete.
Flowering time:- April-June.
Photos by:- Christopher Cheiladakis
FAMILY AND GENUS DESCRIPTIONS
PLUMBAGINACEAE
General description:- Herbs or shrubs.
Leaves:- Alternate or in basal rosettes, exstipulate.
Flowers:- Inflorescence usually cymose, often contracted into a capitulum, rarely
spike-like. Flowers actinomorphic, 5-merous, usually in bracteate spikelets. Calyx
tubular below, toothed (dentate) or lobed and at least slightly thin and dry (scarious)
and often pleated (plicate) distally, persistent. Petals united (connate) only at the
base, or the corolla with a usually short tube. Stamens united with the petals
(epipetalous). Styles 5, or 1 with 5 stigma-lobes. Ovary superior, 1-locular.
Fruit:- Dry, membranous, 1-seeded, surrounded by calyx, not splitting open to
release their seeds (indehiscent) or with circumscissile or irregular dehiscence.
LIMONIUM
General description:- Perennial, rarely annual, herbs or dwarf shrubs.
Leaves:- Simple, usually in a basal rosette, but densely leafy branches sometimes
present; leaves often absent at anthesis.
Flowers:- Inflorescence a corymbose panicle, with terminal, secund spikes, often
with non-flowering branches, usually with a reddish scale at the base of each
branch. Spikes of 3-bracteate, 1- to 5-flowered spikelets; inner and outer bracts
external to the spikelet, the middle one internal and often inconspicuous. Calyx
funnel-shaped (infundibuliform); limb thin and dry (scarious), usually coloured,
sometimes shortly dentate between the lobes. Corolla with a short tube, or the
petals united (connate) only at the base. Stamens inserted at the base of the
corolla. Styles 5, glabrous, free or connate at the base; stigmas thread-like
(filiform).
Fruit:- With circumscissile (opening by a slit running around the circumference) or
irregular splitting open to release the seeds (dehiscence).
1) Calyx infundibuliform.
2) Stamens inserted in base of corolla.
3) Styles 5, free or connate in basal half.
4) Fruit circumscissile towards apex or with irregular dehiscence.
5) Corolla-tube much shorter than lobes.
6) Spikes secund, the terminal not distinctly larger.
7) Stigmas filiform.
