SPECIES DESCRIPTION
HYOSERIS LUCIDA
Family and Genus:- See- COMPOSITAE
Common Names:- None
Homotypic 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.
a) outer, much shorter than
b) 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.
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
