LIOTROPIUM SUPINUM
Family and Genus:- See- BORAGINACEAE
Common Names:- Dwarf heliotrope
Homotypic Synonyms:- Piptoclaina supina.
Meaning:- Heliotropium (Gr) Turn-with-the-sun.
Supinum (L) Lying flat, extended, supine.
General description:- Sprawling annual, grey-tomentose throughout from dense,
subappressed hairs interspersed with few long, patent ones.
Stems:-
1) 10-40 cm.
Leaves:-
1) Up to 3·5 x 2 cm, narrowly elliptical to suborbicular, rounded or cuneate at the
base, whitish-pubescent at least beneath, the veins conspicuously impressed
above.
Flowers:-
1) Cyme:
a) petiole, 0·3-1·5(-2) cm, subsessile, 1- or 2-ranked. dense, elongating.
2) Calyx, 2-2·5 mm, lobed to less than 1/2 of its length. tubular, accrescent in fruit
and becoming pyriform, closely enfolding the fruit and falling with it.
3) Corolla, 2·5-3 mm, pubescent outside,1-2 mm in diam., white.
a) style, almost as long as the stigma, inserted slightly obliquely on the ovary.
b) stigma, conical, hairy, often shallowly bifid.
Fruit:-
1) Nutlet, one-seeded, c. 3 mm, broadly ovoid,) glabrous, obscurely tuberculate.
Key features:-
1) Calyx, lobed to less than 1/2 of its length, almost concealing the single-seeded
fruit and falling with it.
2) Corolla, white or cream.
Habitat:- Sandy ground, cultivated and fallow ground, marshy places by field
margins, often close to the sea. 0-200(-600) m.
Distribution:- Scattered throughout Greece the Mediterranean area and SW Asia,
eastwards to India. Naturalised in N. America and elsewhere. Scattered distribution
on Crete, mainly around coastal areas, rare.
Flowering time:- May-Nov.
Photos by:- Fotis Samaritakis
SPECIES DESCRIPTION
