SAXIFRAGA HEDERACEA

Family and Genus:- See- SAXIFRAGACEAE/Sect. CYMBALARIA

Common Names:- None

Homotypic Synonyms:- None

Meaning:- Saxifraga (L) Stone-breaker.

Hederacea (L) Ivy-like.

General description:- Delicate winter annual, whole plant sub glabrous or with few

slender, glandular hairs.

Stems:-

1) With several decumbent to ascending flowering stems 4-10 cm.

Leaves:-

1) Mainly basal, with a slender petiole.

a) lamina, 6-13(-20) mm, slightly fleshy, broadly ovate to reniform, cuneate to

subcordate at the base, entire or with 3-7 shallow lobes.

Flowers:-

1) usually solitary, sometimes 2-4 in a lax, leafy cyme, on filiform pedicels

5-12 mm, long at anthesis.

2) Sepals, 2 mm, triangular, suberect.

3) Petals, 2-3 mm, obovate-elliptic, white or cream.

4) Ovary, nearly superior,

5) Styles short, straight, divergent.

Fruit:-

1) Capsule, often deflexed.

2) Seeds, 0.4 x 0.3 mm, truncate at one end, somewhat tapering at the other,

evenly covered with cylindrical papillae.

Key features:-

1) Leaves, reniform to suborbicular.

2) Flowers, solitary, in the axils of the foliage-leaves on diffuse stems.

3) Petals, 2-3 mm, white or pale yellow.

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Habitat:- Damp, shady cliffs in gorges and at the mouths of caves, often in

anthropogenic habitats, (stone walls by springs in villages). 0-800(-1500) m. rarely

higher.

Distribution:- Most of Greece but ± lacking in the interior north. - E Mediterranean

region from Greece and Cyrenaica to NW Iraq. Scattered localities throughout

Crete, not common.

Flowering time:- Mar-June, occasionally later.

Photos by:- Fotis Samaritakis