Flora-Fauna

Chamaeleon comosus (Spreng.) Greuter

(Nouvelle Flore du Liban et de la Syrie, vol. 3, p. 446; as Acarna comosa)

• Life-form & habit: Perennial, 30–60 (100) cm tall; erect stems, glabrous or finely pubescent, branched from the base or upper nodes.

• Leaves: Rigid, oblong to lanceolate, pinnatisect with sinuate or dentate-spinulose margins; cauline leaves sessile, amplexicaul.

• Inflorescence & flowers: Capitula variable in size (1–5 cm), hemispheric.

• Bracts: Outer involucral bracts foliose, coriaceous, tomentose, oblong-lanceolate, spinose-dentate, exceeding the receptacle. Intermediate bracts linear-lanceolate, ending in a single or pennate spine. Inner bracts scarious, pink, linear, acute, glabrous.

• Receptacle: Scales fusiform at apex, rigid, very acute.

• Fruit: Achenes with a pappus twice as long as the body, plumose.

• Phenology: Flowers from June to August.

• Habitat & elevation: Abandoned fields and pastures.

• Lebanese distribution: Ct. Tyr, Khaldé, Beirut, Tripoli; Mi. Bikfaya, Broummana, ‘Abey, ‘Aramoun, ‘Aley; Met. Qab Elias, Ta‘naïl.

• Syrian distribution: Aleppo.

• Native range: Lebanon-Syria, Palestine. (KEW)