VALERIANELLA TURGIDA

Family and Genus:- See- VALERIANACEAE

Common Names:- None

Homotypic Synonyms:- None

Meaning:- Valerianella (L) Diminutve of Valeriana.

Turgida (L) Bombastic, swollen, inflated, becoming turgid.

General description:- Short annual, usually hairy.

Stem:-

1) Up to 25(-40) cm.

Leaves:-

1) Lower cauline, broadly spathulate to ovate, obtuse, margins entire to sinuate.

2) Middle and upper, ovate-spathulate to lanceolate, entire to remotely sinuate-

dentate.

Flowers:-

1) Bracts, oblong-spathulate, obtuse, green, with scarious auricles.

2) Calyx, reduced to an indistinct tooth above the fertile loculus.

Fruit:-

1) c. 3 mm, usually all in dense, globose, terminal clusters, hemispherical,

obtusely 3-angled, as wide as long, falling separately, sparsely hairy to

pubescent.

2) Sterile loculi, much larger than the fertile, separated by an ovate-orbicular, flat,

scarious area.

Key features:-

1) Fruit as wide as long, with an ovate-orbicular flat area between the sterile loculi.

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Habitat:- Field margins, patches of meadow and deciduous oak scrub. 0-800 m.

occasionally to 1300 m.

Distribution:- Almost throughout Greece, but less common in the W and far NE. -

SE Europe; through Anatolia to Caucasia. Limited distribution on Crete mainly

around the three main massifs.

Flowering time:- Late Mar to early June.

Photos by:- Fotis Samaritakis