HELIOTROPIUM SUPINUM

Family:- BORAGINACEAE

Common Names:- Dwarf heliotrope

Synonyms:- Piptoclaina supina.

Meaning:- Heliotropium (Gr) Turn-with-the-sun.

Supinum (L) Lying flat, extended, supine.

General description:- Sprawling annual, grey-tomentose throughout from dense,

subappressed hairs interspersed with few long, patent ones.

Stems:-

a) 10-40 cm.

Leaves:-

1) Lamina:

a) up to 3·5 x 2 cm.

b) narrowly elliptical to suborbicular, rounded or cuneate at the base.

c) whitish-pubescent at least beneath, the veins conspicuously impressed above.

Flowers:-

1) Cyme:

a) petiole 0·3-1·5(-2) cm.

b) subsessile.

c) 1- or 2-ranked. dense, elongating.

1) Calyx:

a) 2-2·5 mm.

b) lobed to less than 1/2 of its length.

c) tubular, accrescent in fruit and becoming pyriform, closely enfolding the fruit

and falling with it.

2) Corolla:

a) 2·5-3 mm.

b) pubescent outside.

c) 1-2 mm in diam., white.

d) style almost as long as the stigma, inserted slightly obliquely on the ovary.

e) stigma conical, hairy, often shallowly bifid.

Fruit:-

1) Nutlet:

a) one-seeded.

b) c. 3 mm, broadly ovoid.

c) glabrous, obscurely tuberculate.

Key features:-

1) Calyx lobed to less than 1/2 of its length, almost concealing the single-seeded

fruit and falling with it.

2) Corolla white or cream.

Habitat:- Sandy ground, cultivated and fallow ground, marshy places by field

margins, often close to the sea. 0-200(-600) m.

Distribution:- Scattered throughout Greece the Mediterranean area and SW Asia,

eastwards to India. Naturalised in N. America and elsewhere. Scattered distribution

on Crete, mainly around coastal areas, rare.

Flowering time:- May-Nov.

Photos by:- Fotis Samaritakis