LIMONIUM RORIDUM

Family and Genus:- See- PLUMBAGINACEAE

Common Names:- Greek sea-lavender

Synonyms:- Limonium graecum, Limonium hyssopifolium, Statice echioides,

Statice hyssopifolia, Statice tournefortii.

Meaning:- Limonium (Gr) Meadow-plant. A name used by the Greek physician

and botanist Dioscorides.

Roridum (L) Apparently with a minutely blistered surface, bedewed.

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 long, tuberculate with many crateriform glands, glaucous, conspicuously

flexuous. much branched.

2) Branches:

a) sterile, numerous, 0.5-5.0 cm long.

b) fertile, numerous, 1-6 cm long. glaucous, tuberculate with many crateriform

glands.

Leaves:-

1) 10-30 mm x 4-8 mm, often v-shaped in cross-section, fleshy, rigid, glaucous,

tuberculate with many crateriform glands, spathulate, apex obtuse, 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 x 2.2-2.6 mm, triangular-ovate, obtuse to rounded.

b) middle, membranous, 2.7-3.1 mm x 2.0-2.5 mm, elliptic to oblong-elliptic.

c) Inner, 6.3-7.3 mm x 4.2-5.0, broad, 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, 0.5 x 1.1 mm, semi-circular.

4) Corolla, pink to lilac.

Habitat:- Rocky coasts, mainly on hard limestone, occasionally in maritime sand or

rocky slopes with dry open shrubby vegetation up to 300 m.

Distribution:- Frequent in the central and southern Aegean region: also occurs in

western Turkey. Fairly common around the coastal areas of Crete.

Flowering time:- Apr-July, occasionally later.

Photos by:- Andriy Kovalchuk