SPECIES DESCRIPTION
LIMONIUM FREDERICI
Family:- PLUMBAGINACEAE
Common Names:- None
Synonyms:- Statice frederici
Meaning:- Limonium (Gr) Meadow-plant. A name used by the Greek physician
and botanist Dioscorides.
Frederici (L) Dedicated to the grandson of Edmond Boissier, Frédéric
Barbey, who seems to want to devote himself to the collections of his beloved
grandfather
General description:- Perennial with a rather laxly branched woody stock.
Stems:-
a) 10-30 cm.
b) slender, erect.
c) sparingly branched in the upper half.
d) without sterile branches.
Leaves:-
a) usually 20-40 x 8-15 mm.
b) in basal rosettes or sometimes scattered along the caudex.
c) broadly spathulate, flat or canaliculate, truncate or usually emarginate at the
apex.
d) coriaceous, glaucous. with 1-3 indistinct veins.
e) with 1-3 indistinct veins.
Flowers:-
1) Spikes slender, with 1-2 erect spikelets per cm.
2) Spikelets c. 9 mm, 2-flowered.
3) Calyx c. 7 mm,
a) sparsely short-pubescent below.
b) lobes triangular, ± emarginate.
4) Corolla 9-2 mm, pink.
Habitat:- Usually grows on the cliffs near the sea, but can also be found in
localities distant from the sea or sometimes along the rocky coast, but always on
limestone. up to 200 m.
Distribution:- Endemic to Cyclades, Karpathos and Crete.
Flowering time:- Late April to July.
Photos by:-
FAMILY AND GENUS DESCRIPTIONS
PLUMBAGINACEAE
General description:- Herbs or shrubs.
Leaves:- Alternate or in basal rosettes, exstipulate.
Flowers:- Inflorescence usually cymose, often contracted into a capitulum, rarely
spike-like. Flowers actinomorphic, 5-merous, usually in bracteate spikelets. Calyx
tubular below, toothed (dentate) or lobed and at least slightly thin and dry (scarious)
and often pleated (plicate) distally, persistent. Petals united (connate) only at the
base, or the corolla with a usually short tube. Stamens united with the petals
(epipetalous). Styles 5, or 1 with 5 stigma-lobes. Ovary superior, 1-locular.
Fruit:- Dry, membranous, 1-seeded, surrounded by calyx, not splitting open to
release their seeds (indehiscent) or with circumscissile or irregular dehiscence.
LIMONIUM
General description:- Perennial, rarely annual, herbs or dwarf shrubs.
Leaves:- Simple, usually in a basal rosette, but densely leafy branches sometimes
present; leaves often absent at anthesis.
Flowers:- Inflorescence a corymbose panicle, with terminal, secund spikes, often
with non-flowering branches, usually with a reddish scale at the base of each
branch. Spikes of 3-bracteate, 1- to 5-flowered spikelets; inner and outer bracts
external to the spikelet, the middle one internal and often inconspicuous. Calyx
funnel-shaped (infundibuliform); limb thin and dry (scarious), usually coloured,
sometimes shortly dentate between the lobes. Corolla with a short tube, or the
petals united (connate) only at the base. Stamens inserted at the base of the
corolla. Styles 5, glabrous, free or connate at the base; stigmas thread-like
(filiform).
Fruit:- With circumscissile (opening by a slit running around the circumference) or
irregular splitting open to release the seeds (dehiscence).
1) Calyx infundibuliform.
2) Stamens inserted in base of corolla.
3) Styles 5, free or connate in basal half.
4) Fruit circumscissile towards apex or with irregular dehiscence.
5) Corolla-tube much shorter than lobes.
6) Spikes secund, the terminal not distinctly larger.
7) Stigmas filiform.
