Family |
Boraginaceae
Cerinthe minor
L.
Cerinthe minor L.
(Sp. Pl.: 137; 1753. — Nouvelle Flore du Liban et de la Syrie, vol. 3, Pl. XXXIII nº 5; 1983)
• Life-form & habit: Glabrous, multi-stemmed herb, 30–50 cm tall; stems erect, branched. Usually biennial or short-lived perennial (Mouterde, 1983), though sometimes reported as annual in other floras.
• Leaves: Smooth or with scattered fine tubercles; those of sterile shoots and lower stem oblong-spatulate, narrowed into a petiole; cauline leaves cordate at base, oblong-spatulate, with rounded auricles.
• Inflorescence & flowers: Fruiting cymes eventually strongly elongated. Bracts cordate, exceeding the calyces and largely concealing the flowers at anthesis.
• Calyx: Lobes lanceolate, more or less ciliate, accrescent, rounded at base.
• Corolla: Yellowish, about 11× the calyx length, divided to one-third into lanceolate-acuminate, connivent lobes.
• Stamens: Anthers borne on very short filaments, each with an apical appendage.
• Fruit: Nutlets smooth.
• Phenology: Flowers from May to June.
• Habitat & elevation: Found in high-altitude regions.
• Lebanese distribution: Mm. Les Cèdres (Boiss.), Saïdat el-Qorn, around Laqlouq, above Neba‘ el-Laban; Me. Jabal Sannine.
• Syrian distribution: A.L. Anti-Lebanon (Ky).
• Native range: Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Central European Russia, Czechia-Slovakia, East European Russia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iran, Iraq, Italy, Krym, Lebanon–Syria, North Caucasus, NW. Balkan Peninsula, Poland, Romania, Sicilia, Switzerland, Transcaucasus, Turkey, Turkey-in-Europe, Ukraine (POWO).
• Extinct in: Algeria.
• Introduced into: Altay, Baleares, Kazakhstan, Spain, West Siberia (POWO).