SCLERANTHUS ANNUUS subsp. POLYCARPUS
Family:- CARYOPHYLLACEAE
Common Names:- None
Synonyms:- None
Meaning:- Scleranthus (Gr) With hard thorns or spines.
Annuus (L) One year, annual.
Polycarpus (Gr) Many fruited.
General description:- Small annual or occasionally biennial.
Stems:-
1) 5-15 cm.
Leaves:-
Flower:-
1) Subsessile in terminal and axillary clusters.
3) Petals lacking.
Fruit:-
1) Nutlet, indehiscent, 1-seeded, crowned by persistent sepals.
Key features:-
1) Sepals 1.5-2.5, equal, erecto-patent, with narrow membranous margins.
Habitat:- Sandy and gravelly places, pastures, streambeds, fallow fields. 200-1800
m.
Distribution:- Fairly common on mainland Greece; scattered in Peloponnisos. -
Most of Europe and SW Asia. Rare on Crete, currently know from only one location
in the Lefka Ori W Crete.
Flowering time:- May-July.
Photos by:- Len Worthington
SPECIES DESCRIPTION
GLOSSARY OF TERMS USED
Acute:- Sharp, sharply pointed, the margins near the tip being almost straight.
Ciliate:- Fringed with hairs - generally along the margin of a leaf, petal etc.
Erecto-patent:- Between spreading and erect.
Hypanthium:- Cup-shaped extension of the floral axis (i.e. the receptacle).
Indehiscent:- Fruits that do not split open to release their seeds.
Linear:- Narrow and parallel-sided. Narrow and much longer than wide, with parallel
margins.
Membranous:- Thin and dry, often opaque or transparent - like a membrane.
Perigynous:- When the sepals, petals and stamens are carried up around the
ovary on a hypanthium.
Petal:- The inner perianth segments when they clearly differ from the outer.
Subsessile:- Almost devoid of a stalk. almost stalkless.