BUPLEURUM LANCIFOLIUM

Family and Genus:- See- UMBELLIFERAE

Common Name:- False Thorow-wax

Homotypic Synonyms:- None

Meaning:- Bupleurum (Gr) Ox-rib, an ancient name used by the Greek physician

and poet Nicander.

Lancifolium (L) With lance-shaped leaves

General description:- Erect, glaucous, often purple-tinged annual.

Stems:-

1) 15-75 cm.

Leaves:-

1) Usually ovate- or oblong-lanceolate.

Flowers:-

1) Rays, 2-3(-5), often somewhat thickened at base and apex.

2) Bracteoles, 5-6, suborbicular, mucronate, acuminate, shortly connate at the

base, yellowish-green and patent in flower, becoming whitish and connivent in

fruit, veins conspicuous.

3) Styles, 0.2-0.3 mm, much shorter than the radius of the stylopodium.

Fruit:-

1) 3-3·25 mm, 3-5 mm, ovoid-globose, conspicuously tuberculate.

Key features:-

1) Rays, usually 2-3

2) Bracteoles, suborbicular.

3) Fruit, conspicuously tuberculate.

Click here for a glossary of terms used

Habitat:- Traditionally managed cereal fields, occasionally in semi-natural habitats.

0-400 m.

Distribution:- The Aegean area, Spain and N Africa and SW Asia. Rare on Crete

known only from a few locations in the west.

Flowering time:- Apr-May.

Photos by:- Kind permission of Saxifraga - Free Nature Images