SPECIES DESCRIPTION
NEPETA SCORDOTIS
Family and Genus:- See- LABIATAE/Sect. PYCNONEPETA
Common Names:- None
Homotypic Synonyms:- Nepeta tomentosa.
Meaning:- Nepeta (L) A name used by the Roman naturalist and philosopher Pliny
for plants from Nepi, Etruria, Italy.
Scordotis (L) Possibly meaning Scordium a plant with the smell of
garlic.
General description:- Perennial, rarely annual herbs.
Stems:-
1) 25-60 cm, ascending, simple, rather robust, villous or lanate.
Leaves:-
1) Lower cauline, petiolate.
2) Upper, subsessile. blade, 2.5-6 cm, ovate, cordate at the base, obtuse, rugose
and ± bullate, crenate, villous-lanate.
3) Lower floral, like the cauline, but smaller.
Flower:-
1) Verticillasters, all crowded in a short, dense, broadly cylindrical spike or
the lowest somewhat distant.
2) Bracts, 10-13 x 7-13 mm, broadly ovate, acute, villous;
a) bracteoles, smaller, ovate-lanceolate. equalling the calyx.
3) Calyx, c. 10 mm, straight, woolly;
a) teeth, 3-3·5 mm, lanceolate-subulate, the upper not exceeding the lower.
4) Corolla, 13-16 mm, white to pale pink;
a) tube, slender, gently curved, clearly exceeding the calyx.
b) limb, with purplish-pink spots on the lower lip.
Fruit:-
1) Nutlets, with small, tuberculate or rugose..
Key features:-
1) Bracts, broadly elliptical, acute.
2) Corolla, 13-18 mm . .
3) Outermost bracteoles, equalling or exceeding the calyx.
Habitat:- Fallow terraced fields, streambanks, stony slopes with open dry shrubby
vegetation, archaeological sites. 0-500 m.
Distribution:- Endemic to the Malea peninsula of south-eastern Peloponnisos and
the island of Kithira and Crete. Not common on Crete, there are a few scattered
populations at low altitudes in western and central Crete.
Flowering time:- Mid-Mar to early May.
Photos by:- Fotis Samaritakis
Status:-
Conservation status (for threatened species): Rare (R) according to IUCN 1997
Protection status (for threatened species): Greek Presidential Decree 67/1981
