OROBANCHE OXYLOBA

Family:- OROBANCHACEAE/Sect. TRIONYCHON

Common Names:- None

Synonyms:- Phelipanche mutelii var. Oxyloba, Phelipanche oxyloba,

Phelypaea oxyloba.

Meaning:- Orobanche (Gr) Legume-strangler. (one species is parasitic on

legumes).

Oxyloba (Gr) With sharpe pointed pods or lobes

Stems:-

1) 12-30 × 0·2-0·5 cm.

2) Scarcely swollen at the base.

3) Simple or branched, glandular-pubescent.

Leaves:-

1) 5-15 mm, ovate-lanceolate.

Flowers:-

1) Inflorescence 10-15 × c. 3 cm, lax or dense, glandular-hairy.

2) Bracts 6-9 mm, ovate-lanceolate.

3) Bracteoles linear-subulate, shorter than the calyx.

4) Flowers, lower shortly pedicellate.

5) Calyx:

a) 7-9 mm.

b) teeth triangular-subulate, about equalling the tube.

6) Corolla 15-20 mm, glandular-puberulent, suberect at the base, erecto-patent to

patent and narrowly campanulate above, white at the base, lilac distally.

7) Lower lip, lobes obovate, acute, crenate to subentire.

8) Filaments glabrous, or somewhat hairy above, inserted c. 6 mm above the base

of the corolla.

9) Anthers glabrous, or hairy at the base.

10) Stigma white or pale blue.

Fruit:- Capsule:

1) c. 7 mm.

Key features:-

Host:- On Anthemis chia and other herbs.

Habitat:- Dry open shrubby vegetation, olive groves and gardens, 0-500 m,

Distribution:- Few and scattered records from mainland Greece and Ionian Islands.

- Balkans and SW Asia, eastwards to Pakistan.

Flowering time:- April-June.

Photos by:-

FAMILY AND GENUS DESCRIPTIONS

OROBANCHACEAE

General description:- Perennial (rarely annual) herbs without chlorophyll, parasitic

on the roots of other phanerogamic plants (usually herbaceous dicotyledons).

Stems:- Erect, usually simple.

Leaves:- Alternate, scale-like, often succulent at first.

Flowers:- In a terminal spike or raceme, rarely in a panicle or solitary. Calyx

tubular, cup-shaped or 2-lipped. Corolla 5-lobed, 2-lipped or almost regular.

Stamens 4, arranged in two pairs of unequal length (didynamous). Ovary superior,

1-locular, with 2-4 parietal, often deeply lobed placentae; style single; stigma more

or less 2-lobed.

Fruit:- A capsule, splitting into cells, along the midrib or dorsal suture (loculicidal

capsule); seeds small, numerous.

OROBANCHE

General description:- Perennial, biennial or annual.

Stems:- Stout or slender, simple or branched.

Leaves:- Numerous.

Flowers:- Usually in dense spikes or racemes. Bracteoles, if present, attached to

(adnate) to the calyx. Calyx with cylindrical to bell-shaped (campanulate) tube and

4(-5) teeth, or divided, usually deeply, into 2 lateral segments, which may be entire

or bifid. Corolla strongly 2-lipped; lower lip 3-lobed, at least as long as the upper.

Stamens included. Placentae 4, variably lobed.

Sect. TRIONYCHON

Stems:- Simple or branched.

Flowers:- Stemmed (pedicellate) or stemless (sessile), with 2 bracteoles attached

to (adnate) to the calyx. Calyx with cylindrical to bell-shaped (campanulate) tube

and 4 subequal teeth, rarely with a fifth, much smaller tooth. Corolla white, cream,

blue or violet, constricted below the middle near the insertion of the filaments; upper

lip 2-lobed.