Flora-Fauna

Aristolochia scabridula Boiss.

(Nouvelle Flore du Liban et de la Syrie, vol. 1, Pl. CXXVII nº 2; 1966. First published in Diagn. Pl. Orient. 12: 105, 1853) (Plants of the World Online)

• Life-form & habit: Tuberous perennial geophyte, usually producing a small number of channelled stems from an oblong to cylindrical underground tuber. Stems glabrous at the base but pubescent above, sometimes slightly bent at the leaf nodes. POWO treats the species as accepted and characterizes it as a tuberous geophyte of the eastern Mediterranean/subtropical biome. (Plants of the World Online)

• Leaves: Shortly petiolate, strongly cordate at the base, 5 to 10 × 3 to 6 cm, paler beneath. Both surfaces pubescent when young, later becoming more or less glabrescent. The leaves are not hastate, which is important for separating the plant from A. bottae.

• Inflorescence & flowers: Flowers solitary, borne on hispid peduncles 4 to 5 cm long, recurved and pendent at the tip. Perianth 4 to 5 cm long, uniformly brownish-red outside and inside. Basal part spherical to ovoid; tube distinctly curved before the middle, pubescent externally, ending in a rather broad but relatively short tongue with large cordate auricles.

• Fruit: Not described in detail by Mouterde for this species. As in the genus, the fruit is expected to be a capsule, but no reliable local measurements are given in the cited treatment.

• Phenology: Flowers from February to May.

• Habitat & elevation: Stony places, mainly in lower to middle mountain belts and in Mediterranean continental or Anti-Lebanon settings. Mouterde records it from rocky or stony habitats, with stations ranging from the Lebanese lower mountain belt to Ehden, Ehmej, Jabal Kneissé, Zahlé and adjacent Syrian mountain localities.

• Lebanese distribution: Recorded by Mouterde from Louaizé near Jamhour; Ehden; north of Ehmej; Jabal Kneissé; Zahlé; and Bouqeia.

• Native range: Lebanon-Syria and Palestine. (Plants of the World Online)

• Conservation notes: A Levantine endemic with a relatively restricted range. No formal conservation status is cited here, but its apparent confinement to scattered stony mountain localities suggests that Lebanese populations should be treated as locally significant and worth documenting carefully, especially where habitats are affected by quarrying, road works, urban expansion or overgrazing.

• Diagnostic remarks: Mouterde separates A. scabridula from A. poecilantha by its uniformly brownish-red perianth, rather than a yellowish interior marked with dark purple blotches, and from A. bottae by its non-hastate, generally pubescent leaves.