SPECIES DESCRIPTION
LIMONIUM PROLIFERUM
Family and Genus:- See- PLUMBAGINACEAE
Common Names:- None
Homotypic Synonyms:- Statice prolifera
Meaning:- Limonium (Gr) Meadow-plant. A name used by the Greek physician
and botanist Dioscorides.
Proliferum (L) Proliferous, producing bunched growth or offsets or
young plantlets.
General description:- Glabrous, perennial, forming a sub-shrub 10-35 cm tall, with
many erect stems and a robust tap-root.
Caudices:-
1) 2-10 cm long, densely branched, densely spirally leafy in the upper third; living
leaves in rosettes at apices of the caudices.
Stems:-
1) 10-55 cm long, robust, glaucous, flexuous, articulate, constricted and fragile at
the nodes, tuberculate with many crateriform glands or sometimes verrucate with
crescent-shaped glands, branching begins near the base, very branched, often
repeatedly proliferous.
2) Branches:-
a) sterile, several to numerous, 1-8 cm long, flexuous, branched.
b) fertile, numerous, 2-12 cm long, glaucous, tuberculate with many crateriform
glands, arranged in the upper half of the stems, straight to curved, directed
obliquely upwards to spreading, forming branching angles of 40°-65°,
unbranched or branched
Leaves:-
1) Coriaceous, glaucous, rigid, tuberculate with many crateriform glands, 10-45 x
5-10 mm broad, spathulate to oblong-spathulate, apex obtuse to round,
sometimes retuse, v-shaped in cross-section, with one central nerve, gradually
tapering into the petiole.
Flowers:-
1) Inflorescence trullate or obtrullate in outline.
2) Spikes, 10-80 mm long, straight to curved, erect to directed obliquely upwards;
axis of the spike with many crateriform glands.
a) spikelets. 7.2-9.0 mm long, composed of 1-6 flowers, remotely arranged with
1-3 (-5) per cm.
3) Bracts:
a) outer, 2.2-3.0 x 2.0-2.6 mm, more or less narrowly triangular-ovate, obtuse,
margin broadly membranous; central part slightly fleshy, sometime only at the
base, with some crateriform glands, acuminate.
b) middle, membranous, 2.8-3.5 x 1.8-2.6 mm, oblong-obovate to oblong-elliptic,
rounded.
c) inner, 6.0-8.1 x 3.8-4.2 mm broad, oblong-obovate, rounded, margin broadly
membranous; central part slightly fleshy, with many crateriform glands,
5.0-6.4 x 2.3-3.5 mm broad, oblong to oblong-obovate, acuminate, forming a
narrowly triangular tip, 0.8-1.4 mm long, not reaching the upper margin.
4) Calyx, slender, 5.8-7.0 mm long, exceeding the inner bract by 1-2 mm;
a) tube, glabrous or sparsely shortly hairy, with 5 ribs ending in the middle of the
lobes.
b) lobes, ca. 0.6 × 0.9 mm, semi-circular.
5) Corolla pale, violet.
Habitat:- Rocky and sandy coastal habitats, rarely in dry open shrubby vegetation
a short distance inland. 0-50 m.
Distribution:- Central and southern Aegean region. Limited distribution on Crete
Flowering time:- May-Aug.
Photo by:- Fotis Samaritakis
