SPECIES DESCRIPTION
ECHIUM PARVIFLORUM
Family:- BORAGINACEAE
Common Names:- Small-flowered bugloss.
Synonyms:- None
Meaning:- Echium (Gr) Viper, a name used by the Greek physician Dioscorides'
for a plant that was used to cure snakebite.
Parviflorum (L) Small-flowered.
General description:- Short to medium bristly annual or biennial.
Stems:-
a) rarely exceeding 40cm in height.
b) several or many ascending to erect.
Leaves:-
a) with sparse to dense close lying (appressed) bristly hairs (setae).
1) Basal:
a) 5.5-12 x 5-2.5 cm.
b) spatula-shaped to oblanceolate.
c) long-stalked (petiolate).
2) Cauline:
a) obovate or oblong.
b) uppermost stalkless (sessile).
Flowers:-
1) Calyx:
a) 6-8 mm at full-flowering (anthesis), up to 15 mm with wide lobes in fruit.
2) Corolla:
a) 10-13 mm.
b) bell-shaped (campanulate).
c) pale or dark blue.
d) stamens 5. included.
Fruit:-
1) Nutlets:
a) 2 or 4, (rarely 1 or 3 by abortion).
Key features:-
1) All stamens completely included in corolla-tube.
2) Calyx 6-8 mm at anthesis, up to 15 mm in fruit with lobes 3-6 mm wide at the
base.
Habitat:- Dry rocky and sandy habitats, fields, fallow and waste ground, roadsides,
occasionally on the coast. 0-600 m.
Distribution:- Few and scattered records in W Greece - Widespread in the
Mediterranean area, probably extending to W Syria. Widespread and fairly common
on Crete around coastal areas.
Flowering time:- Mar-June.
Photos by:- Popi Bormpoudaki and Steve Lenton
