Flora-Fauna

Eryngium glomeratum Lam.

(Encycl. 4: 755, 1798; Nouvelle Flore du Liban et de la Syrie, vol. 2, p. 221; 1966)

• Life-form & habit: Annual or biennial herb, 20–50 cm tall, erect, branched above, glabrous, often glaucous.
• Leaves: Basal leaves ovate to oblong, 3–6 × 1–3 cm, serrate or pinnatifid, on long petioles; cauline leaves sessile, amplexicaul, lanceolate, with spiny-dentate margins.
• Inflorescence & flowers: Small, dense globose capitula, 5–10 mm, aggregated in axillary and terminal clusters. Involucral bracts lanceolate, spiny-mucronate, often longer than the heads. Flowers greenish-white to bluish. Calyx teeth lanceolate, acute; petals ovate, apex incurved.
• Fruit: Schizocarp ovoid, 2–3 mm, covered with minute tubercles and scales.
• Phenology: Flowers April–July.
• Habitat & elevation: Fields, dry hillsides, roadsides, steppe margins; low to mid elevations.
• Lebanese distribution: Coastal plains (Beirut, Saida, Tripoli), Beqaa (Zahlé, Baalbeck, Ras Baalbeck), foothills of Mount Lebanon.
• Syrian distribution: Damascus plain, Hauran, Aleppo, Palmyra, Orontes valley, Latakia.
• Native range: Cyprus, East Aegean Islands, Greece, Iraq, Kriti, Lebanon–Syria, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Sinai, Tunisia, Turkey (POWO).