Family |
Asteraceae
Anthemis breviradiata
Eig
Leb. Syr.
Anthemis breviradiata Eig
(First published in Palestine J. Bot., Jerusalem Ser. 1: 174; 1938. Treated in Nouv. Flore du Liban et de la Syrie, vol. 3, p. 410, Pl. CCXXIII nº 4; 1984)
• Life-form & habit: Low, appressed-tomentose annual, multicaule from the collar, diffuse or ascending; stems 6 – 12 cm long.
• Leaves: Small, sessile or subsessile, ovate-oblong in outline, divided into short, linear-oblong lobules with very short apicula; lobes closely spaced.
• Inflorescence & flowers: Peduncles 6 – 9 cm; outer involucral bracts oblong-lanceolate, broadly margined, 5 mm long, with a wide scarious apex; receptacular scales navicular, subcarinate, oblong-spatulate, 2.5 mm, green-nerved, membranous, often emarginate and mucronulate. Disk florets tubular, glabrous or rarely sparsely hairy; ligules oblong-obovate, 4 – 7 mm long, slightly 3-lobed at apex.
• Fruit: Achenes slender, obconic-cylindric, white, faintly recurved, striate, smooth or slightly tuberculate, c. 0.5 mm long, topped by an auricle two to three times shorter than the body.
• Phenology: Flowers in spring.
• Habitat & elevation: Dry steppe and desert regions.
• Lebanese and Syrian distribution: Anti-Lebanon (Yabroud), steppe of Palmyra (T4 station, Qaryatein, Soukhné, Deir-ez-Zor).
• Native range: Endemic to the Syrian Desert (Lebanon-Syria).
• ⚠️ Taxonomic note: A small annual belonging to section Anthemis, characterized by its minute, slender achenes with a very short auricle and reduced ligules. Mouterde treated it as a distinct steppe endemic, closely related to A. wettsteiniana and A. deserti-syriaci Eig.