Family |
Asteraceae
Jacobaea mouterdei
(Arènes) Greuter & B.Nord.
Endemic to Lebanon
Jacobaea mouterdei (Arènes) Greuter & B.Nord.
First published in Willdenowia 37: 181 (2007).
(Nouvelle Flore du Liban et de la Syrie, vol. 3, pp. 428 and 431, under Senecio mouterdei, Pl. CCXLIII, 1; 1983)
Description
Synonym: Senecio mouterdei Arènes.
Life-form & habit: Perennial forming many-stemmed clumps. Plant white-felted except for the green upper leaf surfaces, which have a light cobweb-like covering. Stem thick and branched above.
Leaves: Stalked, oblong-obovate, up to 13 × 6 cm, variously pinnately lobed or deeply divided, with a bluntly three- to five-lobed tip. Up to ten spreading lobes on either side, oblong to oblong-obovate, narrower below, entire or shallowly divided into two to four blunt lobules. Lower lobes run shortly down a petiole broadened at the base. Upper leaves sessile, narrower and wavy-lobed to pinnatifid.
Inflorescence & flowers: Small heads, 7–10 mm in the identification key, inversely conical to bell-shaped, arranged in a many-headed compound corymb with erect branches. Involucre whitish and woolly. Bracts nearly flat and ovate, with a green, three-veined woolly centre and white, papery, glabrous margins. Flowers yellow; ray florets lanceolate with three-toothed tips.
Fruit: Glabrous achenes, described as 0.8 mm long, with a white pappus about 6 mm long, equalling the tubular florets.
Flowering and habitat
Phenology: June.
Habitat & elevation: The original population occupied a difficult-to-access site at the bottom of a deep valley.
Distribution
Lebanese distribution: Wadi Jhannam, downstream from Qemanine and below Hrar. Mouterde reports a few many-stemmed clumps at the only locality then known.
Recorded locations: Wadi el Qatr, Fnaidek and Mechmech.
Native range: Central Lebanon in Kew’s range summary; listed under the distribution unit Lebanon-Syria.
⚠️ Taxonomic note:
Mouterde calls the species endemic and Kew gives Central Lebanon as its native range. Its Lebanese endemic status requires further corroboration. The historical “only locality known” statement refers to Mouterde’s account; additional recorded localities are listed separately.