BELLEVALIA SITIACA

Family and Genus:- See- HYACINTHACEAE

Common Names:- None

Homotypic Synonyms:- None.

Meaning:- Bellevalia (L) For P. R. De Belleval (1558-1632) early systematist.

Sitiaca (L) From the area of Sitia NE. Crete.

General description:- Perennial bulbous plant.

Scape:-

1) 10-15 cm, erect to procumbent, shorter than the leaves.

Leaves:-

1) 10-20 cm x 5-15 mm, linear-lanceolate, pale greyish-green.

Flowers:-

1) Raceme, up to 6 cm, dense, becoming lax. Fruiting, 1-6 cm, usually dense.

2) Flowers, appearing in groups of 18-40 cylindrical.

3) Pedicel, of the fertile flowers 1-3 mm.

4) Fertile flowers, 8-12 mm, urceolate, purplish in bud, becoming bright yellow,

teeth minute, brownish.

Fruit:-

1) Capsule, 10-30 x 20-30 mm, suborbicular to broadly obovate, very deeply angled.

Key features:-

1) Tube of mature fertile flowers brownish, yellow, whitish or greenish.

2) Fertile flowers, with the shoulder expanded into a distinct corona.

3) Sterile flowers, usually absent.

4) Perianth-tube, yellow, tubular-urceolate.

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Habitat:- Rock ledges and rocky slopes with open dry shrubby vegetation,

generally over limestone. 0-300 (-750) m. with Campanula pelviformis, Scorzonera

cretica, etc.

Distribution:- Endemic to east Crete. Rare.

Flowering time:- Late Jan to Mar..

Photos by:- Yannis Zacharachis

Status:-

Threatened species according to the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Chania

(MAICh), 2008