ERYNGIUM MARITIMUM

Family and Genus:- See- UMBELLIFERAE

Common Names:- Sea holly

Homotypic Synonyms:- None

Meaning:- Eryngium (Gr) A name used by the Greek philosopher Theophrastus for

sea holly.

Maritimum (L) Growing by the sea, maritime, of the sea.

General description:- Strongly glaucous, rigid perennial.

Stems:-

1) 20-50 cm, stout, widely branched.

Leaves:-

1) 4-10 x 5-15 cm, alternate, simple, tough and coriaceous, ± lobed, with coarse,

triangular, spine-tipped teeth;

a) lower, petiolate.

b) upper, subsessile, all suborbicular,

Flowers:-

1) Radially symmetrical, gray blue, from 4-5 mm diam, joined together in dense

globe-shaped, capitula, from 15-40 mm.

2) Bracts, 5, foliaceous, ovate, exceeding capitula, forming a spiny involucre.

3) Calyx, with 5 green fused sepals marked with a white line prolonged by a white

thorn.

4) Sepals, 4-5 mm.

5) Styles and stigmas, 2 each

Fruit:-

1) Achenes, small and scaly.

Key features:-

1) Bracts, with 1 or more pairs of spines or teeth, ovate to ovate-lanceolate

2) Sepals, 4-5 mm.

3) Inflorescence, subtended by 5 large, broadly ovate, foliaceous bracts forming a

spiny involucre.

Click here for a glossary of terms used

Habitat:- Sandy beaches, very rarely in sandy habitats some distance inland, up to

50 m.

Distribution:- Most of Greece the Black Sea coasts and throughout the

Mediterranean area and W Europe northwards to W Scandinavia and the Baltic.

Widespread on Crete mainly along the northern coastal region.

Flowering time:- Mid-June to Aug.

Photos by:- Steve Lenton