APERUGO PROCUMBENS

Family and Genus:- See- BORAGINACEAE

Common Name:- Madwort.

Homotypic Synonyms:- None

Meaning:- Asperugo (L) Rough-one.

Procumbens (L) Lying flat on the ground.

General description:- A stiff bristly annual.

Stems:-

1) Up to 70 cm, procumbent or climbing, branched, with stiff, deflexed hairs.

Leaves:-

1) 20-75 mm, lanceolate, subacute to obtuse, margins, entire or slightly dentate.

a) lower, subopposite or verticillate, petiolate.

b) upper, sessile.

Flowers:-

1) Blooms, solitary and axillary, or in axillary pairs.

2) Calyx, lobed almost to the base.

a) lobes, leaf-like, toothed dentate, accrescent, deltate, in fruit to form a 2-lipped

covering round the nutlets.

3) Corolla, infundibuliform, with 5 short scales in the throat, purple or violet.

a) stamens included, inserted in the middle of the tube.

b) style, included.

c) stigma, capitate.

Fruit:-

1) Nutlets, c. 3 mm, densely and finely tuberculate.

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Habitat:- Seasonally damp nitrified habitats at the bases of cliffs, scrub abandoned

settlements 0-700 m. Cultivated, waste and fallow ground, vineyards, often on

nitrogen-rich soils.

Distribution:- Scattered throughout the Greek mainland and Peloponnisos.

A widespread Euro-Siberian species. Previously unrecorded from Crete.

Flowering time:- Apr-June.

Photos by:- Fotis Samaritakis