SAXIFRAGA HEDERACEA

Family:- SAXIFRAGACEAE/Sect. CYMBALARIA

Common Names:- None

Synonyms:- None

Meaning:- Saxifraga (L) Stone-breaker.

Hederacea (L) Ivy-like.

General description:- Delicate winter annual with several, decument to ascending

flowering stems usually 5- 8 cm; whole plant sub glabrous or with few slender,

glandular hairs.

Leaves:- Mainly basal, with slender a stalk (petiole); leaf-blades (lamina) 6-13( -20)

x 6-13( -30) mm, kidney-shaped (reniform) to broadly ovate, wedge-shaped

(cuneate) to almost heart-shaped (subcordate) at the base, entire or with c -7

short, broad, acute to mucronate (ending abruptly in a sharp point) lobes;

calcareous incrustations absent.

Flowers:- Usually solitary, sometimes 2-4 in a lax leafy cyme, on thread-like;

(filiform) stems (pedicels) 5-12 mm in flower, lengthening to 20-45 mm in fruit.

Sepals 2 mm, triangular, suberect. Petals 2-3 mm, obovate-elliptic, white or cream.

Ovary nearly superior; styles short, straight, divergent.

Fruit:- Capsule often deflexed. Seeds 0.4 x 0.3 mm, truncate at one end,

somewhat tapering at the other, evenly covered with cylindrical papillae.

Key features:-

1) Leaves reniform to suborbicular.

2) Flowers solitary, in the axils of foliage-leaves on diffuse stems.

3) Petals 2-3 mm, white or pale yellow.

Habitat:- Damp, shady cliffs in gorges and at the mouths of caves, often in

anthropogenic habitats, (stone walls by springs in villages). 0-800(-1500) m. rarely

higher.

Distribution:- Most of Greece but ± lacking in the interior north. - E Mediterranean

region from Greece and Cyrenaica to NW Iraq. Scattered localities throughout

Crete, not common.

Flowering time:- Mar-June, occasionally later.

Photos by:- Fotis Samaritakis

FAMILY and GENUS DESCRIPTIONS

SAXIFRAGACEAE

General description:- Herbs, mostly perennial.

Flowers:- 4- or 5-merous, usually in cymes (rarely solitary or in racemes). Petals

usually 4 or 5; sometimes absent. Stamens twice as many as the sepals, or rarely

equal in number or fewer. Carpels 2; united below but usually divergent above;

styles free. Ovary superior, semi-inferior or almost inferior.

Fruit:- A capsule. Seeds numerous.

Key features:-

1) Leaves not more than 6 cm wide.

2) Hypanthium united with lower part of ovary, or absent.

SAXIFRAGA

General description:- Herbs, sometimes rather woody at the base; usually

perennial, rarely annual or biennial.

Leaves:- Simple, but often deeply dissected and sometimes apparently ternate;

usually alternate or basal, rarely opposite, exstipulate; foliar glands (other than

hydathodes), if present, superficial or on hairs, not immersed as in Bergenia.

Flowers:- 5-merous, usually in cymes or panicles, rarely solitary in leaf-axils.

Petals present; stamens 10; ovary superior or, more often, semi-inferior or inferior;

placentation axile.

Key features:-

1) Petals entire or emarginate.

2) Leaves not more than 6 cm wide.

3) Hypanthium united with lower part of ovary, or absent.

Sect. CYMBALARIA

General description:- Usually annuals.

Stems:- Diffuse, ascending, leafy.

Leaves:- Mostly alternate, palmately lobed to entire, long-petiolate.

Flowers:- Petals white, yellow or orange. Ovary superior or very nearly so.