CRUPINA CRUPINASTRUM

Family:- COMPOSITAE

Common Names:- Common Crupina, False Saw-wort, Southern Crupina.

Synonyms:- Centaurea crupinastrum, Crupina crupinastrum subsp. morisii,

Crupina morisii, Crupina vulgaris subsp. crupinastrum.

Meaning:- Crupina. Meaning unknown.

Crupinastrum. Meaning unknown.

General description:- Short to medium, soft annual, not spiny.

Stem:-

1) 20-50(-80) cm, thinly-branched, naked above leafy only in lower 1/3-1/2.

Leaves:-

1) Basal, often broadly pinnatifid, entire to dentate, scabrid, sessile to petiolate,

soon decaying.

2) Cauline, scabrid, sessile, the lobes,1·5-3 mm wide, dentate to pinnatisect.

Flowers:-

1) Capitula, with 9-15 florets.

2) Involucre, up to 20 mm, cylindrical to narrowly ovoid, green or purplish.

3) Bracts, light green, sometimes purplish distally.

4) Receptacle, with scales.

5) Florets, reddish-purple, regularly 5-lobed.

Fruit:-

1) Achenes c. 4 mm, narrowly obovoid, somewhat compressed and keeled in the

lower half, with a narrowly elliptical, lateral hilum, dark purplish-brown, somewhat

sericeous above.

2) Pappus of several series of dark purplish, erecto-patent bristles, the outermost

very short, the inner exceeding achene.

Key features:-

1) Stem, leafy only in lower 1/3-1/2.

2) Leaf segments deeply serrate.

3) Achenes, somewhat compressed and keeled in the lower half, with

a narrowly elliptical, lateral hilum.

Click here for a glossary of terms used.

Habitat:- Coastal habitats, dry pastures, olive grovves, field margins, open dry

shrubby vegetation 0-1200 m.

Distribution:- Common throughout Greece the Mediterranean. Widespread in the

Mediterranean region and S W Asia to Caucasia and Iran. Widespread and

common throughout Crete.

Flowering time:- End of Mar to early July.

Photos by:- Steve Lenton