LIMONIUM SIEBERI

Including Limonium grabusae

Family:- PLUMBAGINACEAE

Common Names:- None

Synonyms:- Statice graeca var. sieberi, Statice sieberi.

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

and botanist Dioscorides.

Sieberi (L) For the botanist Franz Wilhelm Sieber (1785-1844).

General description:- Perennial, forming small tufts, with a stout, branched woody

stock.

Stems:-

a) 15-30 cm.

b) few, erect, slender.

c) with few, long branches.

Leaves:-

1) Basal:

a) 20-45 x 4-10 mm.

b) oblanceolate to spathulate, obtuse and often mucronate at the apex.

c) rather thick and rigid, with l main vein and sometimes 2 weak lateral veins.

d) greyish-green to glaucous.

e) finely tuberculate.

Flowers:-

1) Spikes lax.

2) Spikelets:

a) 8-10 mm.

b) 1-or 2-flowered.

3) Bracts rusty-brown.

4) Calyx 5.5-8 mm.

a) appressed-pilose.

b) lobes broadly ovate, obtuse.

5) Corolla pale violet.

Click here for a more detailed description of this species.

Habitat:- Mainly on rocky limestone coasts, rarely in dry open shrubby vegetation,

some distance inland up to 200 m.

Distribution:- Almost restricted to Aegean area,- just extending to S Peloponnisos

and SW Anatolia.

Flowering time:- May-July, occasionally later.

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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.