FAGONIA CRETICA

Family and Genus:- See- ZYGOPHYLLACEAE

Common Names:- None

Synonyms:- Homotypic Synonyms:-

Meaning:- Fagonia (L) For Monsignor Fagon (1638-1718), physician to Louis XIV

of France.

Cretica (L) From Crete. Cretan.

General description:- Low to short, hairless or slightly hairy, sprawling or

prostrate perennial.

Stems:-

1) 10-40 cm. subglabrous, branched, angled and striate.

Leaves:-

1) Opposite, trifoliolate;

a) leaflets, narrowly elliptic-oblanceolate, mucronate, glabrous.

2) Stipules, transformed to sharp but rather weak spines, 2-5 mm.

Flowers:-

1) 9-10 mm, solitary in the leaf axils, on short, glandular-pubescent pedicels, 5-

merous.

2) Sepals, c. 2.5 mm, elliptic-ovate.

3) Petals, c. 10 mm, spreading, with a short claw;

a) limb, suborbicular, bright magenta-pink.

Fruit:-

1) 8-10 mm, (including the persistent style).

2) Loculi, 5, very sharply angled and ciliate on the angles.

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Habitat:- Garigue and olive groves, dry stony and rocky habitats, often on

calcareous soils, gravelly and sandy areas by the coast. 0-150 m.

Distribution:- Scattered localities - Spain - Balearic Is., Sicily, Greece, Crete, N

Africa, Cyprus and E Mediterranean region. On Crete known only from a few

scattered locations in C & E. Rare

Flowering time:- (Feb-)Mar-May.

Photos by:- Yannis Zacharakis