SPECIES DESCRIPTION
LIMONIUM PROLIFERUM
Including:-
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) 2-15 cm long, densely branched and densely spirally leafy in the upper half.
Sometimes leaves in rosettes at the apices.
Stems:-
1) 7-30 cm L, tuberculate with many crateriform glands, glaucous, conspicuously
flexuous. much branched.
a) sterile branches, numerous, 0.5-5.0 cm long.
b) fertile branches, numerous, 1-6 cm long. glaucous, tuberculate with many
crateriform glands.
Leaves:-
1) 10-30 mm long x 4-8 mm broad.fFleshy, rigid, glaucous, tuberculate with many
crateriform glands, spathulate, apex obtuse, often v-shaped in cross-section.
gradually tapering into the petiole.
Flowers:-
1) Spikes, 10-50 mm long, arched, inserted erect to obliquely.
a) spikelets 7.2-9.5 mm long, composed of 1-5 flowers.
2) Bracts;
a) outer, 2.2-3.0 mm L, x 2.2-2.6 mm W, triangular-ovate, obtuse to rounded.
b) middle, membranous, 2.7-3.1 mm L x 2.0-2.5 mm W, elliptic to oblong-
elliptic.
c) inner, 6.3-7.3 mm L x 4.2-5.0 mm W, oblong-obovate, rounded
3) Calyx, 6-7 mm long, exceeding the inner bract by 1-2 mm.
a) tube, sparsely to densely more or less long hairy.
b) lobes, very fine, ca. 0.5 x 1.1 mm, semi-circular.
4) Corolla, pink to lilac.
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
