SPECIES DESCRIPTION
BUPLEURUM GAUDIANUM
Family and Genus:- See- UMBELLIFERAE/Sect. ISOPHYLLUM/Subsect.
Common Name:- None
Homotypic Synonyms:- None
Meaning:- Bupleurum (Gr) Ox-rib, an ancient name used by the Greek physician
and poet Nicander.
Gaudianum (L) Possibly for Dr. Jean Francois Aime Philipe Gaudin
(1766 -1833) Swedish-Canadian botanist of Quebec.
General description:- Erect annual.
Stems:-
1) 3-10 cm.
Leaves:-
1) Linear.
Flowers:-
1) Umbels, long-pedunculate, 4-6(-8)-rayed.
2) Bracts 4 or 5, up to 2/3 as long as the longest ray, lanceolate, acuminate, 3-
veined, with scarious margins.
b) Bractlets, 4 enclosing the flowers before and after anthesis, elliptical, short-
acuminate. 3-veined, with scarious margins contrasting with green central
part.
3) Petals, smooth at the bend, with a reduced lobe, broad as long, purplish.
a) Inflexed lobe of the petal, attenuate to a narrow apex.
Fruit:-
1) Broadly ellipsoid to subglobose, with filiform ridges.
Key features:-
1) Bractlets, 4 in all or most umbellules.
2) Inflexed lobe, of the petal attenuate to a narrow apex
Habitat:- Low dry open shrubby vegetation and open pinewoods on neogene
sediments and sandstone, 0-300 m.
Distribution:- Endemic to the island of Gavdos Crete, discovered in 1980, fairly
common and recollected several times
.
Flowering time:- April-May.
Photos by:- A. N. Other
