LIMONIUM RORIDUM

Including:

Limonium ammophilon

Limonium fragile

Limonium xerocamposicum

Family:- PLUMBAGINACEAE

Common Names:- Greek sea-lavender

Synonyms:- Limonium graecum, Limonium hyssopifolium, Statice echioides,

Statice hyssopifolia, Statice tournefortii.

Meaning:- Limonium (Gr) Meadow-plant. A name used by the Greek physician

and botanist Dioscorides.

Roridum (L) Apparently with a minutely blistered surface, bedewed.

General description:- Glabrous, perennial, forming a sub-shrub 10-35 cm tall, with

many erect stems and a robust tap-root.

Caudices:-

1) 2-15 cm long.

2) Densely branched and densely spirally leafy in the upper half.

3) Sometimes leaves in rosettes at the apices.

Stems:-

1) 7-30 cm long.

2) Tuberculate with many crateriform glands.

3) Glaucous, conspicuously flexuous. much branched.

4) Sterile branches numerous, 0.5-5.0 cm long.

5) Fertile branches

a) numerous, glaucous.

b) tuberculate with many crateriform glands.

c) 1-6 cm long.

Leaves:-

1) Fleshy, rigid, glaucous, tuberculate with many crateriform glands.

2) 10-30 mm long x 4-8 mm broad.

3) Spathulate, apex obtuse.

4) Often v-shaped in cross-section.

5) Gradually tapering into the petiole.

Flowers:-

1) Spikes 10-50 mm long, arched, inserted erect to obliquely.

2) Spikelets 7.2-9.5 mm long, composed of 1-5 flowers.

3) Outer bract 2.2-3.0 mm long x 2.2-2.6 mm broad, triangular-ovate, obtuse to

rounded.

4) Middle bract membranous, 2.7-3.1 mm long x 2.0-2.5 mm broad, elliptic to

oblong-elliptic.

5) Inner bract 6.3-7.3 mm long x 4.2-5.0 mm broad, oblong-obovate, rounded

6) Calyx 6-7 mm long, exceeding the inner bract by 1-2 mm.

a) calyx tube sparsely to densely more or less long hairy.

b) calyx lobes very fine, ca. 0.5 x 1.1 mm, semi-circular.

7) Corolla pink to lilac.

Click here for a more detailed description of this species.

Habitat:- Rocky coasts, mainly on hard limestone, occasionally in maritime sand

or rocky slopes with dry open shrubby vegetation up to 300 m.

Distribution:- Frequent in the central and southern Aegean region: also occurs in

western Turkey. Fairly common around the coastal areas of Crete.

Flowering time:- Apr-July, occasionally later.

Photos by:- Andriy Kovalchuk

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.