Flora-Fauna

Papaver postii Fedde

(First published in Bull. Herb. Boissier, sér. 2, 5: 447, 1905; Nouvelle Flore du Liban et de la Syrie, vol. 2, p. 64; 1969)

• Life-form & habit: Probably annual (though once described as perennial in Flora of Turkey), pluricaule, 10–30 cm tall. Stems and leaves sparsely clothed with appressed setae.

• Leaves: Irregularly dentate, with few lobes.

• Inflorescence & flowers: Peduncles very slender, long, flexuous. Flowers small, 2–3 cm in diameter. Sepals obovate, slightly hispid. Petals bright rose to purplish-red. Stamens with subglobose brown anthers.

• Fruits: Capsule very shortly stipitate, pyriform, less than 1 cm long; stigmatic disc with 5–6 rounded lobes.

• Phenology: Flowers in summer.

• Habitat & elevation: Wooded places, montane belt.

• Lebanese distribution: Forêt de Qamou‘a, collected in August 1932 and July 1936.

• Syrian distribution: Recorded from the northern Alaouite mountains (summit ridge, 4 August 1890, type locality).

• Native range: Lebanon, Syria, also found in Turkey and Cyprus.

• Diagnostic remarks: Fedde could not describe the flowers from the original type, which lacked them. Later collections in Lebanon (Qamou‘a) matched the type in fruit. Plants appear annual in Lebanon and Syria, raising doubts about whether Turkish and Cypriot populations are conspecific.