Flora-Fauna

Onosma sanninensis Maalouf & Binzet

(Phytotaxa, vol. 702(1): 72–82; 2025)

• Life-form & habit: Perennial herb, loosely woody at the base. Stems erect, multiple from the base, 15–25 cm tall, brownish-red in color. Stem indumentum composed of both white, patent, short fine hairs and longer, more conspicuous ones.

• Leaves: Basal leaves forming a rosette; largest blades 4–5 cm long, up to 1.8 cm wide, spathulate to oblanceolate, obtuse or subobtuse. Cauline leaves alternate, up to 3.5 × 1.6 cm, oblanceolate, progressively smaller toward the inflorescence. Lower (older) leaves show signs of senescence, becoming silver-white or canescent as they desiccate.

• Inflorescence & flowers: Terminal cymes, typically uniparous but often biparous, with 5–15 flowers. In dichasial cymes, a solitary flower usually occupies the central position at the bifurcation point, forming a diagnostic V-shape—though rarely replaced by a flower pair. Pedicels 1–3 mm in flower, up to 6 mm in fruit. Bracts linear-lanceolate to narrowly linear, 3–7 mm, equal to or longer than pedicels.

• Calyx: Deeply 5-lobed; lobes linear, acute, 17 mm long at anthesis, accrescent to 22 mm in fruit, densely covered with white, appressed, bristly hairs.

• Corolla: Tubular-campanulate, 22–24 × 5 mm; exterior papillate with minor pilosity below lobes. Lobes acuminate and revolute; initially bright yellow, aging through orange-red-brown to dark purple-blue.

• Stamens: Filaments ca. 4 mm long; anthers linear, up to 7 mm, basifixed.

• Style & fruit: Style 3–4 mm long, clearly exserted from the corolla; stigma small, distinctly bilobed. Nutlets ovoid, 5 × 3 mm, with acute beaked apex, ventrally keeled, papillate, shiny, pale greenish.

• Distribution: A micro-endemic species restricted to the summit region of Mount Sannine, central Lebanon. Known only from a narrow elevational band between 1,750 and 2,100 m.