HYOSCYAMUS AUREUS

Family and Genus:- See- SOLANACEAE

Common Names:- Yellow henbane

Homotypic Synonyms:- None

Meaning:- Hyoscyamus (Gr) Hog-bean. A derogatory name used by the Greek

physician and botanist Dioscorides.

Aureus (L) Golden-yellow.

General description:- Somewhat woody-based perennial.

Stems:-

1) Weak, brittle, sprawling or pendulous, 30-80 cm, moderately branched.

Leaves:-

1) Up to 6 x 5 cm, ovate to suborbicular, broadly cuneate to cordate at the base,

irregularly lobed and dentate or bidentate, densely villous, glandular.

2) Petiole, c. (0·5-)2-3 cm.

Flowers:-

1) In lax, few-flowered racemes.

2) Pedicels. short.

3) Bracts, leaf-like.

4) Calyx, 1·5-2 cm, densely villous below, less so above;

a) teeth, triangular, acute.

b) fruiting calyx, up to 3 cm; infundibuliform, with triangular, acuminate, pungent

teeth and brownish indumentum.

5) Corolla, 30-45 mm, strongly zygomorphic, golden-yellow with dark a brownish-

purple throat.

6) Stamens and style, long-exserted.

Fruit:-

1) Capsule, rounded at the bottom, enclosed and exceeded by a persistent calyx,

opening with a lid.

Key features:-

1) Flowers, all shortly pedicellate, in a lax, few-flowered raceme.

2) Corolla, strongly zygomorphic, golden-yellow with a dark brownish-purple throat.

3) Stamens, long-exserted

Click here for a glossary of terms used

Habitat:- Byzantine and Venetian castle walls, etc., rarely in natural limestone

cliffs. 0-50 (-150) m.

Distribution:- Crete and the Aegean Is. eastwards, including Cyprus. Probably

established in Crete in modern times, a speciality of old, crumbling walls in Iraklion.

Flowering time:- Mar-May and sporadically at other times..

Photos by:- Marinos Gogolos