Flora-Fauna

Leontodon asperrimus (Willd.) Endl.

≡ Scorzonera asperrima Willd.
(First published under current name in Cat. Hort. Vindob. 1: 415; 1842. Treated in Nouvelle Flore du Liban et de la Syrie, vol. 3, p. 508; 1983)

• Life-form & habit: Perennial, 10–40 cm, pale green, entirely covered with scabrid stellate hairs. Rhizome vertical. Scapes stout, sometimes with a basal branch, bearing distant, setaceous squamules.
• Leaves: Numerous, oblong-lanceolate to lanceolate, with spaced teeth, densely stellate-hairy.
• Inflorescence & flowers: Capitula large, accrescent after anthesis, reaching 4–5 cm long; involucre cylindrical, bracts closely appressed, imbricate, enlarging from base to apex, with stellate hairs along midrib and margins. Florets yellow.
• Fruit: Achenes very long, up to 25 mm, gradually attenuated from the middle; pappus dirty white, slightly shorter, composed of 30–35 simple, plumose bristles not dilated at the base.
• Phenology: Flowers May–July.
• Habitat & elevation: Rocky terrains.
• Lebanese distribution: Middle mountains — Boqaïta; upper mountains — Barouk, Ehden, ‘Aïn Zehalta, Jabal Rheimoun above Tannourine, Qarn Aïtou, Hasroun, Cèdres de Hadeth, above Ma‘asser ech-Chouf, Col de Zahlé; eastern slopes — above Zahlé, Ouadi Fouara, Ouadi Ibrissa, Ouadi el-‘Arayech, Bardaouni; Anti-Lebanon — Baalbeck; Hermon — Rachaya.
• Syrian distribution: Above Slenfé, Col de Massiaf, Jaoubat Bourghal; Anti-Lebanon — Yabroud, Jabal Ma‘loula, Ouadi-el-Qarn, valleys east of Jabal Halimé.
• Native range: Iran, Iraq, Krym, Lebanon-Syria, North Caucasus, Palestine, Transcaucasus, Turkmenistan, Türkey.