LUNARIA ANNUA subsp. PACHYRHIZA

Family and Genus:- See- CRUCIFERAE

Common Names:- Honesty, Money plant

Homotypic Synonyms:- None

Meaning:- Lunaria (L) Moon (reference to the seed).

Annua (L) Annual.

Pachyrhiza (Gr) Having thick roots.

General description:- Perennial, with thick, spindle-shaped tubers.

Stems:-

1) Up to 100 cm.

Leaves:-

1) Ovate to lanceolate, acuminate, coarsely and irregularly dentate.

2) Upper, sessile or subsessile.

Flower:-

1) Racemes, of magenta pink.

2) Style, 4-10(-12) mm.

Fruit:-

1) Silicula, 20-70 x (10-)15-35 mm, oblong-elliptical to suborbicular, rounded at the

base and apex; carpophore, (3-)5-20 mm.

Key features:-

1) Upper leaves, sessile or subsessile.

2) Tubers, fusiform.

Click here for a glossary of terms used.

Habitat:- Seasonally damp places in thick scrubby evergreen underbrush, thickets

by streams, gorges, olive groves, road embankments. 0-600(1400) m.

Distribution:- Throughout Peloponnisos, mainland Greece and the Ionian Islands. -

SE Europe and Italy. Limited distribution on Crete mainly in the west, with two new

records from Lasithi.

Flowering time:- Mar-May.

Photos by:- Steve Lenton