Family |
Anacardiaceae
Pistacia terebinthus subsp. palaestina
(Boiss.) Engl.
Pistacia terebinthus subsp. palaestina (Boiss.) Engl.
= Pistacia palaestina Boiss.
(Nouvelle Flore du Liban et de la Syrie, vol. 2, p. 471; 1969. First published in Monographiae Phanerogamarum 4: 290, 1883)
• Life-form & habit: Deciduous tree, up to 7–8 m tall, richly resinous; trunk branched, crown spreading.
• Leaves: Variable, either paripinnate or imparipinnate; terminal leaflet sometimes reduced, sometimes well developed. Leaflets (1–6 pairs, most often 4) lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate, 2–6 × 1–3 cm, long-acuminate or subacute, glabrous or slightly pubescent along the midrib. Rachis not dilated at apex.
• Inflorescence & flowers: Axillary panicles, 10–18 cm, often many-flowered. Male flowers with 5 stamens, 2 mm long. Female flowers with globose ovary and 3 unequal stigmas.
• Fruit: Drupe 5–6 × 4–5 mm, reddish-brown, often broader than long, smooth, with hard stone.
• Phenology: Flowers February–April; fruits ripen in autumn.
• Habitat & elevation: Wooded slopes, scrublands, and field margins; from sea level up to c. 800(–1,200) m.
• Lebanese distribution: Widespread and abundant: Ras Bayada, Saïda, Beirut and environs, Nahr el-Kelb, Dbayé, Ras Chekka–Hamat, Tripoli, ‘Aley, Mekine, Asfouriyé, Deir el-Qamar, Choueir, Beit Méri, Jour el-Bailout, Qannoubine, Ehden.
• Native range: Eastern Mediterranean, extending around the Black Sea