Family |
Asteraceae
Scolymus hispanicus
L.
Scolymus hispanicus L.
First published in Sp. Pl.: 813 (1753).
(Nouvelle Flore du Liban et de la Syrie, vol. 3, p. 499, Pl. CCCXI, 2a–b; 1983)
Description
Life-form & habit: Spiny herb with branched stems, 50–100 cm tall, bearing curled hairs and short, irregular wings with spiny lobes.
Leaves: Dense, oblong-lanceolate leaves with prominent venation and spiny margins lacking a thickened, white cartilaginous border.
Inflorescence & flowers: Yellow-flowered heads occur in the leaf axils and at branch tips, singly or in groups of two to four. Two to three spiny, leaflike bracts surround each group; involucral bracts are sharply pointed.
Fruit: Achenes are enclosed by receptacular scales and topped by a small crown bearing two bristlelike awns.
Flowering and habitat
Phenology: Flowering May–August.
Habitat & elevation: Cultivated and poorly drained ground.
Distribution
Lebanese distribution: Tyr, Hadeth, Beirut, Dbayeh, Tripoli at the mouth of the Qadicha, Ghazir, east of Tripoli and Wadi el Salib.
Syrian distribution: Latakia, Cassius, Ain Halakim, Ain el Beida near Damascus and Khan el Assal.
Native range: Albania, Algeria, Azores, Baleares, Bulgaria, Canary Is., Corse, Cyprus, East Aegean Is., Egypt, France, Greece, Iran, Italy, Kriti, Krym, Lebanon-Syria, Libya, Morocco, North Caucasus, NW. Balkan Pen., Palestine, Portugal, Romania, Sardegna, Sicilia, Spain, Switzerland, Transcaucasus, Tunisia, Türkiye, Türkiye-in-Europe, Ukraine.
Introduced into: Alabama, California, Germany, Great Britain, New South Wales, New York, Pennsylvania, Victoria.