Flora-Fauna

Cephalaria setosa Boiss. & Hohen.

(Diagn. Pl. Orient. 2: 107, 1843; Nouvelle Flore du Liban et de la Syrie, vol. 3, p. 335; Pl. CLXXIII nº 1; 1966)

• Life-form & habit: Annual, 30–60 cm, with erect, subangular stems, branched with short, ascending branchlets. Stems covered with fine reddish tubercles, often bearing deflexed white hairs, especially toward the base.
• Leaves: Lyrate-pinnatipartite; basal leaves with 1–2 short lateral lobes much smaller than the terminal lobe; terminal lobe obovate-oblong to lanceolate, dentate, sparsely hairy to glabrescent.
• Inflorescence & flowers: Peduncles long, bearing heads 10–15 mm across. Bracts white or slightly rufescent, orbicular to elliptic-lanceolate, abruptly ending in a mucro (1–2 mm). Involucel 4–5(7) mm, glabrous or minutely pubescent, with 4 long teeth at the angles reaching or exceeding half the body, and 4 very short or absent intermediate teeth. Corolla usually white (sometimes bluish).
• Fruit: Achenes 3–4 mm, crowned by the persistent involucel.
• Phenology: Flowers June–July.
• Habitat & elevation: Roadsides, abandoned fields, disturbed soils.
• Lebanese distribution: Frequent across the Beqaa and Anti-Lebanon (Baalbeck, Qa‘a, Ras Baalbeck), Hermel.
• Syrian distribution: Hauran, Jeziré, Damascus plain, Palmyra, Aleppo.
• Native range: Iran, Iraq, Lebanon–Syria, Turkey (POWO).

⚠️ Diagnostic note: Easily distinguished from other Levantine Cephalaria by its annual habit, lyrate-pinnatipartite leaves with small basal lobes, and involucral teeth exceeding half the length of the involucel.