SPECIES DESCRIPTION
ANTHEMIS CHIA

Family:- COMPOSITAE/Subgen. ANTHEMIS/Sect. CHIA

Common Name:- None

Synonyms:- None

Meaning:- Anthemis (Gr) Flowery.
                  Chia (L) For the Greek island of Chios.
              
General description:- Low to medium, almost glabrous annual.

Stems:-
1) 5-40 cm, many, simple or sparingly branched, erect or ascending.

Leaves:-
1) Petiolate or sessile, 1- to 2-pinnatisect, with patent segments.
2) Lobes, triangular or ovate, acute or obtuse, mucronate.

Flowers:-
1) Capitula, up to 45 mm diam.
2) Peduncles, long, not clavate.
3) Involucre nearly flat, subglabrous.
4) Bracts, outer triangular-lanceolate, acute, with scarious margins.
5) Bracts, inner oblanceolate or oblong to obovate, obtuse to acute.
6) Ligules, longer than the diameter of the disc.
7) Tubular florets, swollen and spongy in the lower 1/3 in fruit.
8) Receptacular scales, oblong to lanceolate, subobtuse to acute, but not
    mucronate.

Fruit:-
1) Achenes, 2-2·5 mm (excl. auricle), subcylindrical to obconical, with 7-10 rather 
    prominent, narrow ribs.

Key features:-
1) Ligulate florets fertile. 
2) Receptacle hemispherical to hemispherical-ovoid.
3) Achenes of ligules and sometimes of the outer tubular florets with a large hyaline
auricle up to as long as the achene, the others with a very short thick corona.
4) Involucral bracts usually with a dark brown or black margin.

Habitat:- Cultivated, fallow and waste ground, olive groves, orchards, roadsides.0-
1100(1500) m, often gregarious.

Distribution:- Italy and Sicily eastwards, including Cyprus. Widespread and
common on Crete.

Flowering time:- Mar-June.

Photos by:- Steve Lenton