ASPERUGO PROCUMBENS

Family:- BORAGINACEAE

Common Name:- Madwort.

Synonyms:- None

Meaning:- Asperugo (L) Rough-one.

Procumbens (L) Lying flat on the ground.

General description:- A stiff bristly annual.

Stems:-

a) up to 70 cm.

b) procumbent or climbing.

c) branched.

d) with stiff, deflexed hairs.

Leaves:-

1) Lamina:

a) 20-75 mm.

b) lanceolate, subacute to obtuse.

c) margins, entire or slightly dentate.

d) lower leaves, subopposite or verticillate, petiolate.

e) upper leaves, sessile.

Flowers:-

1) Blooms:

a) solitary and axillary, or in axillary pairs.

2) Calyx:

a) lobed almost to the base.

b) lobes leaf-like, toothed (dentate), increasing in length or thickness with age

and shaped like an equal-sided triangle (deltate) in fruit to form a 2-lipped

covering round the nutlets.

3) Corolla:

a) funnel-shaped (infundibuliform). with 5 short scales in the throat.

b) purple or violet.

c) stamens included, inserted in the middle of the tube.

d) style included.

e) stigma pin-headed (capitate).

Fruit:-

1) Nutlets:

a) c. 3 mm.

b) densely and finely tuberculate.

Habitat:- Seasonally damp nitrified habitats at the bases of cliffs, scrub abandoned

settlements 0-700 m. Cultivated, waste and fallow ground, vineyards, often on

nitrogen-rich soils.

Distribution:- Scattered throughout the Greek mainland and Peloponnisos.

A widespread Euro-Siberian species. Previously unrecorded from Crete.

Flowering time:- Apr-June.

Photos by:- Fotis Samaritakis