Flora-Fauna

Phagnalon kotschyi Sch.Bip. ex Boiss.

(First published in Fl. Orient. 3: 221; 1875)

• Life-form & habit: Suffruticose perennial with a woody rhizome; stems slender, ascending, green to pale and sometimes appressed-canescent; usually 10–20 cm tall.

• Leaves: Thin, pale green, glabrous; 2–3 cm long; oblong to elliptic-lanceolate, entire and slightly acute; lower leaves attenuate into a petiole, upper ones sessile and distinctly adpressed-auriculate.

• Inflorescence & flowers: Terminal peduncles elongated, slender, often solitary or paired; involucre 8–10 mm, pale and shining, glabrous; bracts narrow, lanceolate, the inner long-attenuate and acuminate; florets pale whitish-yellow.

• Fruits: Achenes subcylindrical, without a beak, crowned by a sparse, scabrid pappus in one series (generic character).

• Phenology: June to September.

• Habitat & elevation: Rocky slopes at mid– to high altitudes.

• Lebanese distribution: Mount Lebanon from Douma, Kneissé, Sannine, Afqa, Neba‘ el-Laban, Hasroun, Ehden, Dimane, Aïn el-Qarn, Qala‘at Arrouba, the Makmel range, and Jabal Qammoua.

• Native range: Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Türkiye (Kurdistan).

• ⚠️ Taxonomic note: Easily distinguished from P. rupestre by its green leaves on both sides (never woolly white beneath) and by the long-attenuate, acuminate inner bracts of the involucre, a key feature emphasized by Mouterde.