HYOSERIS LUCIDA

Family:- COMPOSITAE

Common Names:- None

Synonyms:- Aposeris lucida, Hyoseris radiata var. lucida.

Meaning:- Hyoseris (Gr) Pig-salad.

Lucida (L) Bright, clear, shining.

General description:- Short to medium perennial, hairy or almost hairless.

Stem:-

1) Scapes, simple, suberect, usually 10-30 cm, scarcely swollen in fruit.

Leaves:-

1) All basal, 50-250 x 10-50 mm, ascending or erect, oblanceolate, obtuse to acute,

often long-petiolate divided into more or less ovate lobes, which are often

runcinate, sometimes imbricate, subentire to dentate.

Flowers:

1) Yellow, dandelion-like, 25-35 mm, solitary on scapes.

2) Florets all rayed, imbricate, the outermost somewhat longer than the inner.

3) Bracts linear to oblong, pale to dark, in two rows, the outer much shorter than

the inner, all shorter than the florets.

Fruit:-

1) Achenes 8-12 mm, ± compressed, pale brown, puberulent at least on the

margins, some of the outer with very short pappus, the middle and inner with

pappus of simple white hairs equalling the achene.

Key features:-

1) Scapes 6-36 cm, not swollen.

2) Involucre 10-19 mm.

3) Stock not woody.

4) Inner achenes terete, sterile.

Click here for a glossary of terms used.

Habitat:- Sand dunes, ruderal coastal habitats, roadsides, fallow terraces,

occasionIly in open dry shrubby vegetation. 0·200(-500) m.

Distribution:- Ionian Islands. - E.Mediterranean area from Greece and Libya to W

Anatolia. Limited distribution on Crete mainly on the west and central north coasts.

Flowering time:- Mar to early June.

Photos by:- Steve Lenton