SPECIES DESCRIPTION
BUPLEURUM SUBOVATUM
Family and Genus:- See- UMBELLIFERAE
Common Name:- False Thorow-wax
Homotypic Synonyms:- Bupleurum intermedium, Bupleurum protractum.
Meaning:- Bupleurum (Gr) Ox-rib, an ancient name used by the Greek physician
and poet Nicander.
Subovatum (L) Almost ovate - slightly ovate.
General description:- Medium to tall, annual.
Stems:-
1) 10-40 cm, erect, terete, moderately branched above.
Leaves:-
1) Perfoliate;
a) middle, narrowly ovate, c. twice as long as wide, obtuse, apiculate.
Flowers:-
1) Umbels, with 3 or 4 slightly unequal rays, yellow, small,
a) umbellules, 15-25-flowered, dense.
2) Bracts, usually lacking.
3) Bractlets, 5-6, broadly ovate, spreading, distinctly longer than the flowers, very
shortly connate at the base, herbaceous, greenish-yellow.
4) Styles, equalling the radius of the stylopodium.
Fruit:-
1) 4-5 mm, broadly ellipsoid, tuberculate.
Key features:-
1) Leaves, ovate, twice as long as wide.
a) upper, perfoliate.
2) Umbellules, 15-25-flowered.
3) Fruit, 4-5 mm
4) Bracts, lacking or vestigial.
Habitat:- Usually in cereal fields, vineyards and orchards, occasionally in dry open
shrubby vegetation, dry pastures or open woodland. 0-1100 m.
Distribution:- Spain and NW Africa eastwards to Turkey, but absent from most of
the islands, except Corsica and Sardinia. On Crete known only from the Katharo
plain. Unrecorded on Crete prior to 2009
Flowering time:- Late Apr to early June.
Photos by:- Steve Lenton
