LIMONIUM SITIACUM

Including Limonium oligotrichum

Family:- PLUMBAGINACEAE

Common Names:- None

Synonyms:- None

Meaning:- Limonium (Gr) Meadow-plant. A name used by the Greek physician

and botanist Dioscorides.

Sitiacum (L) From the area of Sitia, east Crete.

General description:- Glabrous perennial with a laxly branched woody stock,

forming loose tufts.

Stems:-

a) 10-30 cm.

b) slender, sparingly branched.

c) papillose and rough.

d) sterile branches lacking or few.

Leaves:-

1) Basal:

a) several, suberect, in a loose rosette.

b) spathulate and 5-8 mm wide near the apex.

c) sometimes folded or canaliculate, tapering to a long petiole, rounded to

truncate or mucronate at the apex.

d) coriaceous, glaucous, densely covered with crateriform glands.

Flowers:-

1) Spikes:

a) long and lax.

b) with slender, 1-3-flowered spikelets 8.5-10 mm.

2) Calyx:

a) 6-7 mm.

b) narrowly tubular.

c) subglabrous.

3) Corolla:

a) c. 9 mm.

b) lilac

Click here for a more detailed description of this species.

Habitat:- Halophytic communities on rocky and sandy coasts, also in dry open

shrubby vegetation on dry, rocky slopes, mainly of hard limestone, up to 200 m.

Distribution:- Endemic, restricted to hot and dry habitats in the SE Aegean area.

On Crete restricted to the east.

Flowering time:- May-June.

Photos by:- Christopher Cheiladakis

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.