GALATELLA CRETICA

Family:- COMPOSITAE

Common Names:- None

Synonyms:- Aster creticus, Crinitaria cretica.

Meaning:- Galatella. Meaning unknown.

Cretica (L) From Crete, Cretan.

General description:- Perennial with tough, fibrous roots.

Stem:-

1) 15-40cm., decumbent to erect, rigid, arachnoid-floccose, subglabrous above,

leafy up to the capitula.

Leaves:-

1) Linear-lanceolate, rigid, mucronate, eglandular, 1-veined.

Flowers:-

1) Capitula usually solitary on short branches with bract-like leaves.

2) Involucre 7-8 mm, campanulate.

3) Phyllaries in 2 or 3 rows, the inner oblong, obtuse, with scarious margins,

subglabrous.

4) Florets yellow fading orange, tubular with long, spreading lobes.

5) Anther tube much exserted.

Fruit:-

1) Achenes pilose, with a pappus of scabridulous hairs c. 6 mm.

Key features:-

1) Inner involucral bracts subacute, acuminate.

2) Leaves not succulent, all sessile; 1-veined, acicular or linear to linear-lanceolate.

3) Stem floccose.

4) Capitula solitary or few.

Click here for a glossary of terms used.

Habitat:- Loamy and gravelly coastal habitats, rocky hillsides with open dry

shrubby vegetation and open coniferous woodland. 0-600(-1100) m.

Distribution:- Endemic E. Crete, Karpathos, Rhodes & SW. Turkey. Restricted to

eastern Crete from the Dikti massif eastward. A significant new location west of

Malia was made in Oct 2022 by Renata Kouraki

Flowering time:- Mainly Sept-Dec, occasionally at other times.

Photos by:- Steve Lenton