GLOBULARIA ALYPUM

Family and Genus:- See- PLANTAGINACEAE

Common Name:- Shrubby globularia

Homotypic Synonyms:- None

Meaning:- Globularia (L) Globe.

Alypum (L) A former synonym for Globularia.

General description:- Shrub, Young twigs and leaves with abundant calcareous

secretions.

Stems:-

1) Up to 150(-200) cm. ascending to erect, branched, especially below, glabrous or

sometimes glandular-hairy in the inflorescence.

Leaves:-

1) Oblanceolate to obovate, mucronate or the apex 3-dentate, coriaceous, short

petiolate, uniformly distributed on the main stems, fasciculate, on short, non-

flowering lateral branches.

Flowers:-

1) Lilac-blue, borne in globose heads, 10-25mm diam., mostly terminal, fragrant,

2) Corolla, with a single 3-lobed lip, sometimes with sessile axillary capitula below

them.

3) Involucral bracts, broadly ovate, obtuse, sometimes mucronate, ciliate, densely

imbricate and forming a ruff below the flower-heads.

4) Calyx-teeth, about twice as long as the tube, setaceous, long-ciliate.

Key features:-

1) Shrub, with erect or procumbent woody branches.

2) Twigs, leafy up to the inflorescence.

3) Never rooting at the nodes.

Click here for a glossary of terms used.

Habitat:- Constituent of dry open shrubby vegetation, scrubland vegetation and as

undergrowth in open pinewoods on rocky hillslopes. 0-500(-900) m.

Distribution:- Fairly widespread throughout the Mediterranean. Rare on Crete,

known only from the Gulf of Mesara region and Gavdos island off the south-western

coast.

Flowering time:- (Oct-) Jan-Apr.

Photo by:- Yannis Zacharakis