RUMEX CONGLOMERATUS

Family and Genus:- See- POLYGONACEAE/Subgen. RUMEX

Common Names:- Sharpe or Clustered dock.

Homotypic Synonyms:- None

Meaning:- Rumex (L) A name used by the Roman naturalist and philosopher Pliny

for sorrel.

Conglomeratus (L) Rolled up, crowded.

General description:- Slender perennial, mostly erect, often branching from below

the middle.

Stem:-

1) 40-80(-120) cm tall. usually solitary, erect, rather slender.

Leaves:-

1) Basal, long-petiolate;

a) blade,10-15 x 1-5 cm, oblong-lanceolate, flat or slightly undulate.

Flowers:-

1) Inflorescence lax; whorls small but dense, remote, many of them subtended by

well-developed leaves.

2) Pedicels, about as long as the valves, articulated near the middle.

3) Valves, 2·5-3·2 x 1-1·7 mm, oblong-ovate, entire, all with small, tuberculate.

4) Fruiting valves, 2.5-3 x 1-1.5 mm, lingulate or narrowly triangular, entire or with

some minute teeth near the base, all with broad, oblong tubercles.

Fruit:-

1) Nutlet, obtusely trigonous.

Key features:-

1) Valves, entire or with obscure small rounded teeth (crenulate).

2) All the whorls in the lower ½ of the inflorescence subtended by small, leaf-like

bracts.

Click here for a glossary of terms used

Habitat:- Seasonally wet ruderal habitats, roadsides, olive groves, grassland. 0-

1000 m.

Distribution:- Throughout Greece, but less common in the south. - Most of Europe,

w &SW Asia, N Africa, introduced or casual elsewhere. Limited distribution across

Crete.

Flowering time:- Apr-Aug.

Photos by:- Steve Lenton