Family |
Papaveraceae
Fumaria asepala
Boiss.
Fumaria asepala Boiss.
(First published in Fl. Orient. 1: 135 (1867); Nouvelle Flore du Liban et de la Syrie, vol. 2, Pl. XXIX nº 5; 1970) (Index Internacional de Nomes de Plantas)
• Life-form & habit : Small annual herb, often pluricaulous; stems more or less erect, often slightly thickened; plant glabrous.
• Leaves : Leaves 2–3-pinnatisect, with flat, slightly acute lobes, relatively broad compared with neighbouring species such as Fumaria parviflora; blade thin, not fleshy.
• Inflorescence & flowers : Flowers in very short, sessile, few-flowered racemes, usually 6–12-flowered, largely overtopped by the foliage; sepals absent or extremely small and scarcely visible; corolla white, 4–5 mm long; upper petal dilated and slightly emarginate at the apex, with a green keel; petal tips purple.
• Fruit : Fruit about 2 mm, globose, slightly apiculate.
• Phenology : Flowers from February to June.
• Habitat & elevation : Sands, rocks and waste ground; in Lebanon and Syria mainly in higher and subarid regions beyond the coastal chains, rather than in the humid coastal climatic zone.
• Lebanese distribution : Recorded by Mouterde from Ras Jedra, not controlled; Bcharré, above Hadeth, ‘Aïn-el-Qarn, Hasroun, the Cedars, Col des Cèdres, Rahoué, between Hadeth and Yammouné, Baalbeck, north of Qa‘a, and Rachaya.
• Native range : Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon-Syria, Palestine, Transcaucasus, Türkiye.
• Diagnostic remarks : Close to Fumaria parviflora, from which it is often difficult to separate because the very small sepals of F. parviflora are also caducous. Mouterde separates F. asepala by its absent or imperceptible sepals, generally very white petals, somewhat thickened stems, flat leaf lobes and thin, relatively broad leaf segments. It also differs from F. vaillantii by the absence or near absence of sepals and by its whiter, smaller flowers in very short racemes.