Flora-Fauna

Echinops adenocaulos Boiss.

(First published in Diagn. Pl. Orient. 10: 88 (1849); Nouvelle Flore du Liban et de la Syrie, vol. 3; 1983, included by the editors among the taxa formerly confused under Echinops viscosus)

• Life-form & habit : Perennial spiny hemicryptophyte; stems erect, usually branched above, glandular and more or less canescent, forming robust thistle-like plants.

• Leaves : Leaves green to canescent above, glandular-hairy, canescent beneath, pinnatipartite to bipinnatipartite or even pinnatisect, divided into narrow lanceolate spiny lobes.

• Inflorescence & flowers : Glomerules mostly solitary at the tips of stems or branches, 5–6(–8) cm in diameter; common involucre very reduced; basal brush of setiform bracts at the base of each partial involucre short, reaching only one-third to one-quarter of the rest of the flower; remaining bracts c. 20–22, outer ones deltoid-triangular, often broader than long, glabrous or glandular, intermediate bracts denticulate near the middle and subulate at the apex, inner bracts united below into a membranous tube and fimbriate above.

• Fruit : Achenes with a pappus of paleaceous bristles, shortly connate at base.

• Phenology : Flowers from May to August.

• Habitat & elevation : Fields and roadsides.

• Lebanese distribution : Recorded under the Echinops viscosus complex from coastal and montane Lebanon, including the Saïda area, Beirut, Jisr el-Khardali to Qleyya, Qrayya, ‘Abey, Beit Méri, ‘Aley, Souq-el-Gharb, Broummana, Ehden, Qannoubine, Jabal Sannine, Zahlé, Said Neil and Ta‘naïl.

• Native range : Lebanon to W. Jordan.

• Diagnostic remarks : Separated from Echinops viscosus sensu lato by later revision; Mouterde’s editors noted that two taxa had been confused under E. viscosus in Lebanon and Syria, namely E. adenocaulos and E. viscosus subsp. macrolepis. It is distinguished within this complex by its glandular foliage, large terminal glomerules and short basal brush of bracts below each partial involucre.