TORILIS ARVENSIS subsp. ARVENSIS

Family and Genus:- See- UMBELLIFERAE

Common Names:- Spreading hedge parsley

Homotypic Synonyms:- None

Meaning:- Torilis A meaningless name used by the French naturalist

Michel Adanson.

Arvensis (L) Of the cultivated field, of ploughed fields.

General description:- Very variable, usually erect, medium to tall, hairy annual.

Stem:-

1) Up to 100 cm. sparingly branched, with short, appressed, retrorse hairs.

Leaves:-

1) Usually 1- or 2-pinnate with ultimate segments coarsely debtate or pinnatifid,

strigose;

a) lower and upper leaves rather similar.

Flowers:-

1) Umbels, with 2-12 rays, long-pedicellate, white.

2) Bracts, absent or one, but secondary bracts usually numerous, small.

3) Outer petals, only slightly radiate.

4) Styles, 2-3 times as long as the stylopodium, erecto-patent.

Fruit:-

1) Ovoid, 3-6 mm; both mericarps spiny, or the outer spiny and the inner

tuberculate; rarely the whole fruit covered with tubercles.

Key features:-

1) Leaves, coarsely divided; lobes at least 2 mm wide.

2) Styles, 2-3 times as long as the stylopodium.

3) Outer petals, only slightly radiate.

Click here for a glossary of terms used

Habitat:- Road embankments, scrub, fallow fields, olive groves, waste-ground. 0-

1400 m.

Distribution:- Widespread throughout the Mediterranean. Widespread on Crete, but

mainly east and west.

Flowering time:- Apr-July.

Photos by:- Steve Lenton